


Cabin One

by CoralFlowerDaylight (CoralFlower)



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: (one of the good guys has D.I.D.), (speculated to be a cause of death but isn't actually), Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Alternate Universe - Shannon County Missouri, Angst, Angst and Horror, Angst with a Happy Ending, Childhood Trauma, Cussing, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Dragon Hybrids, Fluff and Horror, Good Deceit Sanders, Happy Ending, Horror, Humor, I'm like, If you can handle all these triggers you'll probably like this, Implied/Referenced Animal Death, Implied/Referenced Child Death, M/M, Magic-Users, Magical Realism, Mind Control, Murder, Mystery, Non-Human Deceit Sanders, Past Child Abuse, Past Kidnapping, Plot Twists, Potions, Psychological Warfare, Roman is a Dragon Witch, Suicide, Sympathetic Deceit Sanders, Talking Animals, Time Shenanigans, horror with a happy ending, many warnings within, super proud of this story. its good
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-03
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2019-10-03 08:28:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 23,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17280584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CoralFlower/pseuds/CoralFlowerDaylight
Summary: Thomas discovers he has magic powers the hard way when he rents a one-room cottage in the Ozarks for midterm break and ends up offending at least one real life witch before he can smooth things out. But it's okay! He's learning, and making new friends, and that's what's important! Between meeting a talking cat, a dragon witch, and a literal weather man, Thomas barely has time to worry about the watchful eyes he feels whenever he stops to breathe, or the fact that there isn't a Cabin 1.But the campground hides a secret that might not be dark so much as it is depressing, and as Thomas's new friends start dying one by one, he starts to wonder what exactly could be watching him from the other side of Cabin 2...(horror with a happy ending. read the warnings. chapters 2-8 are completed and will be posted with minimal wait.)





	1. Chapter 2

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for the whole story (read these!): past kidnapping, blood, major character death, storms, suicide*, murder, implied drowning, snakes, snake bite, mild body horror, graphic fantasy-racial hate crime, graphic past bullying, mind control sorta?, past abuse, car-related death, very vaguely implied animal death (you probably won't notice), mutilation, a ghost, two misogynistic slurs; house fire, many gun mentions but no real guns, comparing an abused guy to his dad (yeah oof sorry), implied past child murder
> 
> There Might Be More! If I add to this list, I'll let you guys know in a new chapter note what I added so you won't have to check back here every time.
> 
> *no one commits suicide, but it's speculated to be the cause of death for some characters
> 
>  **If you have a trigger word, message me on twitter/tumblr, send me an ask on tumblr, or drop a comment, and I'll let you know if this work contains that word** , and potentially post a pastebin of the chapter without the word if you want to read anyway. (i've got a trigger word so i know what it's like)
> 
> Hello! Welcome to my first horror fic! I started it in April and I'm so excited to finally post it. Somehow I didn't realise how triggering it was while I was writing it. It's not edgy on purpose but... a lot of bad stuff happens. However I promise there's no spiders or r*pe so there's that i guess! onward with the story!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for this chapter: very mild mind control? yikes this sounds worse than it is

  
[high res](https://imgur.com/a/6jHKd6Z)

When Thomas first sees the Poppy Creek cabins in person, it’s raining, water spilling onto the roof of his car and lulling him into a shimmery sort of daze, where the trees blur together outside into a messy, vibrant orangey-green. He’s been driving for several hours in this hazy mood, and it took him three passes to find the right place to turn between the trees. He cruises down the rough gravel drive, with the the creek on his left and some weirdly tall rock formations on his right, and passes a reinforced concrete low-water bridge right as he’s snapping out of his daze. Woah, his back is stiff. Ouch. He needs to lay down and have some coffee, even though it’s late afternoon and it’ll probably keep him up all night.

Thomas keeps driving, out of the woods and into a clearing, where four cabins are lined up on the hill to his right, arranged in two pairs, each pair with its own short gravel drive at a right angle to the one Thomas is on. Across from the cabins, between the creek and the drive, on Thomas’s left, is a fire circle, three weathered wooden picnic tables, and several scattered trees.

Thomas notices that the cabin he reserved, Cabin 3, is actually the second one in the row, and that the cabins are numbered from two to five. Strange. He wonders why there’s no Cabin 1.

Thomas knew, when he booked his weekend here, that someone else would probably be renting out the other cabins at the same time, so it doesn’t surprise him that there’s already a car in Cabin 2’s driveway. It’s silver and practical, a sedan, and that’s the extent of Thomas’s car knowledge. As he passes it and pulls into the driveway of Cabin 3, he notices the long scrape along the side that has just begun to rust. Well, that’s unfortunate. He could probably touch that up, though; he’s gotten in his fair share of scrapes, and keeps ten bottles of clear nail polish from 5 below in his glove compartment at all times. He puts his car in park and then turns to dig in the backseat for his raincoat, a bright red, knee-length, hooded thing that’s a little tight in the shoulders and patched on one elbow. He puts it on, checking the pockets to make sure he has everything, and turns his car off.

Thomas heaves a sigh and opens his glove compartment to get out some of the nail polish, tucking it into his pocket. He gets out of his car, wincing as the rain hits him, and walks over to Cabin 2’s porch, hoping to make a friend or two. He has to be careful not to slip on the hill, because the ground is muddy, and littered with pine needles that would make great tinder if it weren’t so wet out. Thomas opens Cabin 2’s screen door to knock, and a short guy in a black and purple hoodie answers it. When he sees Thomas, he says,

“Sorry about the rain. Logan was experimenting, I’ll get him to quit.”

Thomas frowns and says,

“What?”

But the man is already disappearing back inside and shutting the door. Thomas waits a long moment, and then knocks again, disgruntled.

“Look, I know it sucks, but we didn’t know anyone else would get here before tomorrow.” the man says, chewing on the side of his lower lip. “If you’re worried about the walnuts--”

“Walnuts?”

“You’re from the city, aren’t you. Well, stay away from the black walnut trees, they attract lightning.”

“Listen,” Thomas says. “I-- I have no idea why you’d bother apologising for the weather, but I like rain. I actually came over here to offer to help fix the scrape on your car-- er, keep it from rusting more, anyway.”

The man narrows his eyes at Thomas, then says,

“Why don’t you come in?”

Relieved, Thomas agrees, and follows the man inside the cabin. He’s doing it! He’s making a friend! This is so exciting.

“Yo, Logan,” the short guy is saying to a taller man in an apron who is chopping vegetables. “This guy says--”

“Does he have a name?”

The shorter one flushes, and looks at Thomas like _well, do you?_

“I’m Thomas,” Thomas says. “It’s good to meet you.”

“Virgil,” The short guy mutters. “Anyway, he’s offering to fix the scrape on the van.”

“It wouldn’t look pretty afterwards,” Thomas clarifies, because _fix_ makes it sound too much like he’s competent. “I just figure it’d be a good idea to stop that rust.”

“Yeah,” the taller man sighs; Thomas assumes he’s Logan. “Well, we knew when the curse got put on that door in the first place it’d never look the same again. But if you can fix it, we’d be happy to work out some exchange--”

“Oh yeah,” Virgil says. “You should stop the rain, it’s rude.”

“I’m working on it,” Logan says tightly. “If you’d take over chopping I could work on it a little harder.”

“Sorry, curse?”

The two of them look at Thomas like he’s the one acting weird, and then Virgil says,

“Yeah, curse. It’s only a little one, but it’s loud enough I can hear it from in here, are you saying you didn’t notice it?”

“Hear--”

“Virgil has synesthesia,” Logan says. “His sensing gets mixed up with his normal senses a lot of the time, that’s why he says he can hear it.”

“I _can_ hear it,” Virgil grumbles, taking the knife from Logan and setting to work on a zucchini. “It’s fuckin’ loud as shit, rrk rrk rkk--” he makes a weird screeching sound in the back of his throat and continues, “it’s been keeping me up all night since fucking _October_ decided he had to curse your car because his dress got caught when the door closed, or whatever it was.”

Thomas laughs nervously. He wants new friends, but he doesn’t need them badly enough to stick around during this conversation.

“Okay, well, it was good talking to you guys! If you need anything I’m in Cabin 3, just knock and all that!”

Virgil turns, knife in hand, and frowns at Thomas. The front door shuts with an unsettling quickness, and Thomas flinches. It wasn’t weighted, it shouldn’t have just shut like that.

“What the fuck,” Thomas says.

“Probably just a draft,” murmurs Logan, sitting at the kitchen table with his eyes shut. “Happens all the time. Virgil, set the knife down, you’re making him nervous.”

“Sorry, jeez,” Virgil says, putting the knife down. “Look, I just have two questions, alright, Thomas?”

Thomas nods, feeling like even if he said no, the doorknob wouldn’t turn until he answered them anyway.

“First question: --”

Loud static comes out of Virgil’s mouth, and Thomas jerks back, grabbing the doorknob and trying to turn it. It doesn’t budge.

“Second question: what did you just hear?”

“Bunch of static,” Thomas gasps. Oh god, he’s gonna get murdered. He’s gonna get killed and dumped in the woods and he’s never gonna get his degree. “Let me out.”

“Calm down,” Virgil says, voice suddenly layered, deeper, in a way that’s hard to describe. Thomas finds himself relaxing.

“That’s so creepy, dude,” Thomas says. “Let me out.”

“We _can’t_ \--”

“Virgil, hush,” Logan says, opening his eyes, and the sound of the rain on the roof abruptly stops. “Thomas, I’m going to open the door in thirty seconds whether or not you agree to what I’m about to suggest--” Virgil gasps indignantly-- “and if you want, we can head down to neutral territory-- the firepit-- and talk about this like adults. Or we can just agree to leave each other alone, okay?”

“Um,” Thomas says, voice cracking. “Yeah, an explanation would be nice.”

The door clicks open, and Virgil flings a hand out suddenly. Thomas flinches, and the door shuts again, locking itself. The little chain dealy even slips into its slot and slides over.

“Logan, we can’t just--”

Logan’s voice takes on the same layered quality Virgil’s had when he told Thomas to calm down, only a whole lot stronger.

“Be quiet, and let Thomas leave.”

Virgil shudders, and grudgingly flaps his hand in the direction of the door. Thomas can hear a very quiet squeaking sound.

“The hinges are unstuck now,” Virgil says hoarsely, and Thomas just stares.

“I said quiet,” Logan says, voice still layered. “You’re freaking him out. Normal people react badly out of fear, Virgil, you’re making this a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

Virgil glares at Thomas, who finds himself suddenly terrified. He fumbles with the locks and lurches out the door, stumbling in the mud just off the porch and sitting down because panic is making him dizzy and he’d rather have muddy pants than fall. He tries to take deep breaths, but he hears the wet snap of a twig behind him and whips around.

It’s just Logan. He sits on the grass next to Thomas in his apron.

“There’s horror stories about you people, you know,” he says conversationally, and Thomas gapes. “People without magic, I mean.”

Thomas hears himself make a weird, shocked noise.

“Magic.”

“Yes,” says Logan. “Stories about how you guys react when you find out your neighbor is a witch, or something. About how some of you have guns and there’s no way to tell which ones. Virgil gets really freaked out by those stories, and neither of us are healers.”

Thomas catches the subtext-- Virgil is terrified of getting shot-- but says, weakly,

“You’re gonna have to take that from the top, sorry. If-- if muggles, or whatever--” Logan snorts-- “are so scary, why did Virgil say anything about you stopping the rain without making sure I wasn’t one?”

“Well,” Logan says delicately, pushing his glasses up and wiping his other hand on his apron, “You shouldn’t have been able to access the website to book a cabin here if you aren’t magical.”

Thomas takes a moment to freak out in the back of his mind. Holy shit. Magic. He has magic.

“Are you saying I--”

The sound of tires on gravel suddenly starts up from the woods, and Logan brightens.

“Oh, that must be another neighbor. By the way, that coat looks tight, do you want one of us to fix it for you? As long as you stay for dinner, that is.”

“Um-- maybe-- listen, are you saying I’m magical?”

Logan shrugs.

“Probably. It’s the only logical explanation for your presence here.”

A black car with no front license plate and homemade-looking green lanterns in place of its headlights becomes visible on the drive, and Thomas watches it pass in silence, wondering why the universe chose this specific moment to finally give him magic powers. The car parks by Cabin 5, and a tall, dark-haired man in sunglasses and a black leather jacket clambers out with a big, skinny catlike thing sitting on his shoulders. He walks over to Thomas and Logan with a big grin on his face, and says,

“I’d’ve said hi a moment ago, but the windows get angry with me whenever it rains, and they wouldn’t open.”

“Understandable,” Logan says. “I’m Logan. I’m a self-trained weather witch and empath, and my roommate and I both have the Speech, though mine is stronger.”

“I’m Remy,” the other says. “I have the Speech too, but it’s laughably weak on humans, I’m better with animals. I’m good at the transportation side of T&T, not so much teleportation though. Cars, and all that. I’ve also got some unknown light abilities I haven’t explored yet.”

“Light like not dark, or like flashlight?” Logan asks, and Remy laughs.

“Like flashlight. Isn’t the light-dark binary theory outdated, anyway?”

“True,” Logan says. “My roommate is good at light. Maybe you and him can figure something out.”

“That would be great,” Remy says, and then smiles at Thomas. “Are you the roommate?”

Thomas shakes his head, starting to panic again.

“I’m in Cabin 3.”

He doesn’t say anything else, and infers from the glance Remy tries to exchange with Logan that he’s committed some kind of faux pas in doing so.

“That’s a cool coat,” Remy says. “What’s it do?”

“Keeps me dry,” Thomas mutters, and Remy chuckles.

“So what do _you_ do?” he prompts, and Thomas swallows, unsure what to say; he’s afraid to face another reaction like Virgil’s.

“Well... I major in chemical engineering at Webster in St. Louis--”

Remy gasps.

“You go to college? That’s so cool! I wish I could go to college. I mean,” the smile suddenly slips off his face. “I know you have to be really weak in magic to walk amongst normal people without scaring them, I’m not saying I want--” he shifts-- “you know.”

“I get by,” Thomas says, after a momentary awkward pause. “I can’t do anything obvious, but people at school say my voice is magical, so. There’s that, I guess.”

“Thomas actually only discovered his magical heritage recently,” Logan says, “so he’s still learning, right?”

Thomas tries not to look too grateful as he nods.

“Wow,” Remy says. “How did that happen?”

“Well, I... saw something I shouldn’t have been able to see, and someone noticed.”

“That must have been awkward,” Remy says, laughing.

“It was honestly sort of terrifying.”

Thomas laughs uneasily.

“Oh, did I introduce Moonshine yet?” Remy indicates the black catlike thing draped across his shoulders like a cape. “This is Moonshine, my familiar. He talks.”

Thomas’s jaw drops, and the cat-shaped thing called Moonshine makes eye contact and doesn’t blink. Thomas feels compelled to look away. Moonshine has luminous eyes, one yellow and one the same shade of green as the lanterns on Remy’s car. It’s... strange.

“He talks?”

“Only when he feels like it,” Remy says with an affectionate smile, eyes scrunching up. “He can also detect termites, aphids, and ants. Sometimes he turns into a cape.”

“What’s your affinity, if you have one?” Logan asks the not-a-cat. Moonshine makes a weird, rapsy chirping sound and turns away from Logan, his claws digging into Remy’s neck as he shifts. Thomas notices a lot of scratches on Remy’s exposed skin.

“What... species is he?”

“You can ask him that,” Remy says, petting Moonshine between the ears. “It’s only polite.”

“Are you a cat?” Thomas asks, feeling kind of silly.

Moonshine looks at him as if to say, _darling, I am better than a cat_ , which is the most he’s looked like a cat in the few minutes since Thomas first saw him.

“Well, that’s informative,” Logan says dryly.

It’s almost dark now, and the fireflies are beginning to come out as katydids chirp and frogs hum. From the woods comes the sound of tires on gravel again, and Virgil comes stomping out of Cabin 2 to stand by the empty fire pit.

“There you are,” Logan says. “Come introduce yourself.”

Virgil doesn’t answer, just flips him off, and Logan rolls his eyes.

“He’s moody.”

“Um,” Thomas says, unsure if he even wants to help this guy. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t you tell him to stop talking earlier, with that weird, creepy voice? Like, twice?”

“Oh!” says Logan. “Oops. You can talk again.”

Virgil still doesn’t respond.

“Yeah, he’s moody,” Logan concludes, and Virgil turns around, furiously forming signs one-handed and spelling out letters in the air with bright purple light:

_assflash, newshole! to counteract a Spoken order, you have to use the Speech again! incredible, i know, it’s not like it’s the first fucking thing they teach you when they find out you have it, or anything!_

The letters are the first thing the people in the black pickup truck see driving out of the trees, and they slow down, not wanting to drive between an angry witch and the people he’s angry at.

“Talk,” says Logan, in that weird voice.

“Say it again,” rasps Virgil, and Thomas can barely hear him over the creek in the background.

“ _Talk_ ,” Logan repeats.

“Fucking finally,” Virgil exclaims, waving the letters away and gesturing the truck onwards. It parks by Cabin 4, and a man with immaculate brown hair and strangely shiny skin runs down the hill towards the little gathering.

“Are you starting a fire?” he asks excitedly. “Let me help! I’m Roman, I’ve got some dragon in me and I’m super good at fire and making cows do what I want them to! I can also fly.”

Now that Roman is closer, Thomas is noticing the scales, claws, and weird red tint to his brown eyes, and he steps back without consciously deciding to. Everyone notices, and Roman loses some of his sparkle.

“Wow, rude,” Virgil mutters.

“Sorry,” says Thomas, flushing. “I only learned I had magic in me this week. Even this guy shutting a door from across the room freaked me out earlier.” He tilts his head towards Virgil, and Roman smiles at him.

He has _fangs_. Thomas’s jaw drops, but he quickly smiles back, not wanting to hurt Roman’s feelings.

Thomas notices Virgil glaring at him, and he looks away.

“Um, sure, we can start a fire,” he says, nervous, and Roman whoops.

“Let’s wait to do introductions until afterwards,” Virgil says, waving a hand at the wood stacked up halfway between the creek and the firepit. A log lifts into the air and floats unsteadily towards the firepit. “I’m freezing.”

Another person jogs down from Cabin 4. They’re scaly too, but the pattern of their scales is different from Roman’s, and they’re a shiny pastel blue.

“Hey,” they say. “Whoever’s in Cabin 1, you know your car door has a curse on it, right?”

“You mean Cabin 2?” Logan says. “And yes, we know.”

“Is it really Cabin 2?” The newcomer turns back to the cabins and counts them, then makes a face. “Interesting. I wonder what happened to Cabin 1, then.”

“Maybe nothing,” says Thomas, a little grumpy from all the stress. “Maybe they’re just numbered this way for kicks. Maybe there was never a Cabin 1 in the first place.”

The new guy looks at Thomas with a flat look on their face.

“Something definitely happened to Cabin 1.”

Thomas blinks, unsure what would make him say that, and looks up the hill. Something does feel off about the absence of a Cabin 1, but Thomas doesn’t know whether that’s just superstition or if his subconscious mind has noticed something dangerous about the area and not yet bothered to specify what it was. Either way, it’s made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, and Thomas begins to wonder if booking a cabin for midterm break was actually a terrible idea.

Either way, Thomas has a horrible feeling that he’ll find out eventually.


	2. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter warnings: mild head trauma (healed immediately), brief gun discussion, foreshadowing  
> warnings added (applies to the whole fic): house fire, many gun mentions but no real guns, comparing an abused guy to his dad (yeah oof sorry), implied past child murder
> 
> yeah... i've added them to the beginning A/N.

Within the fire circle, Virgil and Roman finish setting up the wood, and Roman grins.

“Okay, I’m starting the fire now,” he says. “Who wants to watch?”

Remy cheers, and Thomas turns to watch too. Roman is crouching just outside the circle of rocks. He snaps his fingers, and a flame blossoms in his hand. He cradles it close to his chest and whispers encouragement, waiting for it to grow to the size of a baseball before he reaches one arm out to touch the wood in the firepit and allows the flames to crawl up his arm and across his shoulders. The fire settles into the wood like a cat laying down in a sunny spot.

“Wow,” Remy says.

Roman grins, basking in the attention like a snake beneath a heat lamp.

“I’ll get us seats,” grumbles Virgil, and he moves one arm in a sweeping motion. A tree stump uproots itself and floats across the clearing to settle in front of Thomas.

At the same time, Virgil makes more of those one-handed signs, and purple light forms chairs in a circle around the fire.

Thomas makes a face, wondering why Virgil didn’t just make him a chair like he did for the others.

“ _Wow_ ,” Remy says again, voice soft, almost reverent, as he sits down. “This is really awesome.”

“Thanks,” Virgil mutters, looking away, but he’s smiling. He’s got a scar on his bottom lip that Thomas can see for only a second before he starts chewing on it again.

“Okay, introductions?” Remy prompts. “Who wants to go first?”

“You can,” Virgil tells him, and Remy turns to sit sideways in his chair like a rogueish character in some fantasy book preparing to tell of his adventures. Moonshine lets out a complaining gurgle, and leaps from Remy’s shoulders into Virgil’s lap.

“Hey,” Remy protests, but--

“No,” says Moonshine, curling around Virgil’s waist and hooking his claws in his hoodie. Thomas’s jaw drops. “This one’s less wiggly.”

“Can I pet you?” Virgil asks, voice soft, and Moonshine melts into even more of a puddle-that-looks-like-a-cat-but-isn’t-one.

“Yeahh,” he mutters, trailing off into a purr as Virgil starts petting his head.

“He’s cute,” Virgil says, looking at Remy, who seems sort of put out. For a moment, Thomas thinks someone’s going to tell him off for talking about Moonshine like a pet, but then Moonshine drowsily speaks up,

“Ain’t he? I got the best human.”

“What’s your name, cutie?” asks Virgil.

Remy flushes, and coughs, now looking significantly less roguish and a lot more silly sitting in his chair wrong.

“Remy,” he says, voice cracking. Moonshine chuckles wheezily. “I, uh, have Speech that’s useless on humans and works best on animals, I specialise in the transportation component of T&T, and I’ve got a light affinity that I don’t know how to use.”

“Wow,” Virgil says, crossing one leg over the other and leaning forward in interest. Moonshine hisses and slinks out of his lap, climbing up Thomas’s leg instead. “I’m not bad at light myself. Come over later and I can give you some pointers, if you like.”

His voice dips low, and Thomas shifts uncomfortably, causing Moonshine to abandon him in favour of Roman, who grins. Thomas looks away from his fangs and ends up watching Virgil again, which is just plain awkward.

“That would be great,” Remy says. “What else do you do?”

“Well,” Virgil says, directing his introduction to Remy even though nobody has heard it yet. “I’m Virgil. I specialise in light, but I’m not bad at fear, and I have moderate Speech.”

“Cool, my turn,” Thomas says, desperate for an end to their flirting. “Thomas Sanders, majoring in chemical engineering at Webster in St. Louis, and I took a Speech and Debate class a few semesters ago but forgot everything.”

Logan rolls his eyes at the joke about Speech, and Thomas sighs in relief. That was easier than he thought it would be.

“Um, I should be honest, though--”

Thomas watches Virgil’s eyebrows shoot up, and it suddenly feels like everything is watching him very closely, especially a spot in the woods on the other side of Cabin 2 from the rest of the cabins. Thomas shivers.

“I didn’t know magic was real until today. I thought this was just a regular campground and I’m both scared and excited right now, because it feels like something’s watching--”

“Quiet,” Logan says, voice layered heavily with the Speech. He sounds panicked. Roman almost falls out of his chair. “Sorry, but you don’t mention it out loud when you feel that. It’s bad for your health.”

Thomas nods numbly.

“You gotta turn it off still,” Virgil reminds him, and Logan flushes at forgetting again and tells Thomas to speak.

“Well, anyway... Apparently I have magic, but I don’t even know what to do with it.”

“So you really had never seen anyone part-dragon before,” Roman says quietly. “You were just caught off guard.”

“Where would I run into a part dragon in St. Louis,” Thomas says, and Roman grins, showing his teeth.

“You’d be surprised.”

“Well, I’m sorry for reacting how I did.”

“It’s chill,” says Roman, still smiling. “It’s honestly kind of refreshing, I like it. Is it my turn now? Okay. I’m Roman Prince. Part dragon. I’m good at fire and making cows do what I want them to.”

“Why cows?” Thomas asks, and Roman laughs.

“Dragons used to fly off with whole cows all the time.”

“That’s hyperbole,” says the other person from Cabin 4, the one who was driving the truck. “I’m--”

“Wait, Roman, didn’t you say earlier you could fly?” Remy asks.

“He can’t fly,” says the other scaled one, laughing.

“I can too!” Roman says. “Just because you’ve never seen it. I can only do it when the suns out and it still takes a lot of energy.”

“If you say so,” says the other. “Anyway. I’m Deceit Moore. I specialise in runes and healing. I have hereditary water-related abilities.”

“Think waterbending,” Roman says. 

“I guess it’s my turn now,” says Logan. “I’m Logan Berry. I have strong Speech, hereditary empathy, and I trained myself in weather magic.”

“Logan-- Logan Barry?” Roman asks, face pale, and Logan shakes his head very quickly.

“No! Oh god, no. Berry, with an E.”

“Unfortunate name,” Roman says.

“So you made it rain,” Moonshine interjects, and Logan nods. “Aren’t you worried about collateral damage?”

Logan stiffens, and opens his mouth to speak but doesn’t say anything. After a long pause, Remy shifts awkwardly, and asks,

“What were you guys planning to do for dinner?”

Moonshine turns over in Roman’s lap and then climbs down his leg, retreating back to Remy and hiding in his jacket.

“Well,” Logan says, a little shakily, “Virgil and I prepared ingredients for a stir-fry earlier, if anyone wants to contribute something and share. We’ve got a really big pan.”

“I have an onion and a half,” Thomas offers. “Other than that I was just gonna alternate between rice and ramen for every meal.”

“Roman and I have a ton of hot dogs,” Deceit says. “They’re expired, and dragon stomachs can handle that, but it’d be risky to share.”

“Yeah,” Roman says, “but we also got loads of those big marshmallows for trading with, so can we try the stir-fly--”

“Stir-fry,” Deceit murmurs.

“It was a pun! Anyway I’d like to try what the rest of you are having if any’s left over cus it sounds good.”

“I’ve got bok choy from my garden at home,” Remy says.

“You grow normal produce?” Virgil asks. “That’s impressive. How do you keep it from absorbing ambient magic?”

Remy leaps into a technical-sounding explanation that Thomas can’t parse a single second of. Virgil is nodding attentively, though, asking the occasional question, and it’s obvious he understands every word.

“Thomas,” Logan says, “if you want to trade some rice, Virgil and I have enough vegetables to share for the week. Do you like spinach?”

“I love spinach,” Thomas says.

“Virgil hates it, he’ll be glad to see it go.”

“Well, that’s settled, then,” says Thomas, surprised it was that easy. “How much rice do you want?”

“We can figure that out tomorrow morning,” Logan says. “Virgil, darling, help me carry the ingredients down.”

Virgil flushes and glares at Logan, whining,

“Ah, I’m talking to Remy, though. He knows all about gardening, I’m learning loads.”

“I’ll help,” Thomas says, standing, and Virgil grins triumphantly, turning back to Remy.

Logan rolls his eyes, and Thomas follows him up to Cabin 2. Moonshine leaps off of Remy’s shoulder to follow them up the hill.

Inside the cabin, Logan hands Thomas the salt and pepper shakers, and a tray of chopped vegetables and meat rises up from the counter.

“Thanks for helping,” Logan says without a touch of sarcasm in his voice, carrying a wok in his hands. Thomas is having trouble looking directly at the wok, which is surprisingly unnerving, considering that it’s just a wok. He looks down at the salt and pepper shakers in his hands, and shakes his head in mild disbelief.

“I’m gonna detour to my cabin to chop my onion,” he says, and the salt and pepper rise out of his hands to follow behind the floating tray.

“Bring it down, and if you’re not good at chopping bring a knife and board and I’ll take care of it.”

Thomas shoves his hands deep into the pockets of his raincoat and heads over to his car, feeling useless. He gets the already peeled half-onion out of the insulated lunchbox in the trunk, and stops by his cabin to get a cutting board and a knife.

“People die around weather witches,” Moonshine says, and Thomas flinches, dropping his onion, which is luckily in a ziploc bag.

“What?”

“People die around weather witches.”

“What do you mean?”

“The training is tricky. Just thought you should know.”

Now thoroughly unnerved, Thomas gets a cutting board and knife out of his cabin’s kitchen and shoves the knife and onion into his pockets. He detours to his car to grab the best method of self defense he’s got with him, a lead ball with a monkey’s fist knot tied around it with red paracord. He holds it in his hand, wrapping the excess cord around his palm and hoping he won’t have to use it.

When he gets back down the the fire and passes the onion, cutting board, and knife off to Logan, Deceit frowns, and says,

“Did someone bring lead?”

Thomas’s eyes shoot up, and Virgil stiffens.

“How did you know?”

“My tattoo detects lead,” they explain, tugging a glove off to show Thomas the runes tattooed on their wrist. “Could you put your gun away? It’s just dinner, why would you need it?”

“It’s not a gun,” Thomas says, showing Deceit his (admittedly sort of pathetic) weapon and trying not to look at Logan. “Moonshine said some stuff that made me nervous so I got this from my car, the ball inside the knot is made of lead.”

Deceit looks skeptical.

“Not that I don’t trust you, but I’m gonna have to request that you let me scan you with someone else holding that. Just in case. I can heal, but I’d rather not have to.”

“Sure,” says Thomas, handing the ball to Roman, who immediately starts swinging it around. Deceit walks in a circle around Thomas, and grins sheepishly as they sit back down.

“Thanks for understanding.”

“It’s no problem. Roman, could I have--”

As Thomas speaks, Roman loses control of the ball, and it smashes into his head with a scary thunk.

“Goddammit,” Deceit sighs. “Well, get over here.”

“Hurts,” Roman whines, and staggers, grabbing onto Thomas and leaning on him heavily. “Ow fuck shit.”

Deceit pries Roman off of Thomas and supports him as they walk back to their chair, putting their hand over the place the ball hit and saying,

“Virgil, could you expand this into a bench, please?”

Virgil looks over, and his eyebrows shoot up at the sight of the blood on Roman’s hand as he pulls it away from his head and looks at it confusedly.

“Shit,” Virgil says, and the chairs made of light all disappear as he sways, shutting his eyes. Deceit and Roman both fall, and Roman lets out a sharp sound like when you accidentally step on your dog’s paw.

“ _Hurts_ ,” he whines again, and Deceit takes his hand, kisses him on the nose.

“I know, Ro, I’m gonna fix you.”

They pull Roman’s head into their lap and take their gloves off, placing one finger on each of Roman’s temples. Roman’s eyes flutter shut, and his mouth falls open. His breath hitches, and then his back is arching, sparks popping off his fingertips as Deceit’s hands begin to glow yellow.

“Dee,” Roman gasps, and Thomas looks away, feeling like he’s intruding on something intimate.

Remy is watching him curiously from the ground.

“Thomas, can I ask what Moonshine said that got you so freaked out?”

Remy doesn’t stand, and Thomas feels awkward looking down at him, so he sits on his stump and then moves to the ground next to Remy and leans over to whisper,

“It’s... about weather witches.”

Remy’s eyebrows furrow just a tad, and he says,

“Well, they can be dangerous, but I’m sure he wouldn’t be out around people if he couldn’t handle himself.”

The chairs reappear, and Thomas looks at Virgil to see him leaning on a walking stick made of light, face pale.

“Sorry,” he says, breathing heavily. “Blood really freaks me out.”

“I’m sorry too,” Roman says. “I should’ve been more careful with Thomas’s not-gun.”

Thomas snorts.

“Backfiring can happen to anyone,” he says.

“Can we not tell gun jokes?” Virgil pleads, voice jumping up into a higher register, and Thomas looks away.

“Sorry.”

“I’mma go get our hot dogs,” Roman says, trying to stand, and Deceit pulls him back down.

“No you aren’t. I’m gonna make you an icerock and you’re gonna sit up straight for at least twenty minutes before you jostle your brain around any more.”

“Aw,” Roman whines, trying to wriggle out of Deceit’s grip on his wrist. “Hot dogs, though!”

“I can tell him to sit still, if you want,” Logan offers, and Roman flinches, cowering with his hands over his ears.

“No!” he says forcefully, and Deceit shakes their head.

“Yeah, if any of you Speak at him for any reason I’ll temporarily disable your larynx. I can do that from 300 feet, I’ve practiced it way more than anything else.”

“Good to know,” Logan mutters, and Virgil lets out a ‘meep’ sound.

Deceit helps Roman into a chair and kisses his forehead, whispering something in his ear.

“Of course, love,” Roman says, pulling a pendant on a leather cord out of Deceit’s shirt and rubbing it very quickly with his hands. “That should do it.”

When he pulls his hands away, the pendant is glowing, and Thomas’s jaw drops for what feels like the twentieth time.

“Okay, Virge,” Logan is saying. “Can you make something to hold this pan over the fire?”

“I’m already doing five chairs,” Virgil complains, waving his hand and creating a camp grill out of light as well. Then Thomas is finally able to look straight at the wok, which expands as Logan adds food to it.

Deceit comes back from the creek with a rounded chunk of marble, and Thomas winces at the screeching sound as they scrape at it with their claws. Moonshine drops out of one of the trees in the clearing (a black walnut) and makes a beeline for Remy, hiding in his jacket and making him squirm.

“Fucking hell!” Virgil shouts, covering his ears and shutting his eyes. “Quit that or I’ll drop the food in the fucking fire, it’s distracting!”

“Almost done,” Deceit promises, and Logan grabs the wok’s handle as Virgil’s camp grill starts to flicker.

“Got a fucking headache now,” Virgil grips once Deceit is done. “God, first Joan’s screechy curse and now your fucking howling rock, why is everyone else’s magic so _loud_?”

“Those runes just make it cold,” Deceit says, puzzled, and Virgil heaves a sigh.

“I hear magic, okay? And what I hear is howling as loud as two wolves going at it into a microphone, you fucking furry.”

“Takes one to know one,” Roman snickers, holding the rock against his head.

“I could give you cat ears,” Remy offers. “The first potion I discovered does that on accident.”

Virgil snorts.

“What was it supposed to do?”

“I was going for the balance and grace of a cat, but apparently that includes the vestibular system, so I got cat ears when I drank it.”

“Makes sense,” Deceit says. “Since your sense of balance is housed in your ears.”

The three of them set off on yet another incomprehensible technical conversation, and Thomas sighs.

“Stir-fry’s almost done,” Logan says. “Can anyone get plates?”

Thomas volunteers again, and again Moonshine follows him. He shuts his cabin’s screen door before the not-a-cat can follow, though; he’s done hearing creepy things.

He gets plates out of the cabinet and then heads back out. Deceit is walking up the hill now, and they nod at Thomas when they pass. Thomas nods back.

He puts the plates on the end of one picnic table and listens to Virgil and Remy’s conversation for about two seconds before tuning out again;

“How long would the cat ears last for?” Virgil is asking, and Thomas isn’t a furry, so he wants nothing to do with that.

“Come serve yourselves,” Logan says, setting the wok on a potholder by the plates, and Thomas realises he forgot to get silverware.

Deceit gets back then with a plastic grocery bag full of hot dogs, and Roman perks up.

“I noticed you weren’t carrying silverware,” Deceit says to Thomas, “so I got some from our cabin while I was there.”

“Did you get the skewer thingies from the truck?” Roman asks, and Deceit cusses and heads back up the hill. Roman snickers.

“Hey lovebirds,” Logan says, and Virgil flinches, looking guilty with his hand on Remy’s waist pushing his shirt up just a little. “I know you want to devour each other,” Virgil’s flush deepens and Remy grins, “but you should probably eat some actual food before it gets cold.”

“Damn,” Remy says, as Virgil gets up, and he says it quietly, but Thomas is unfortunately close enough to hear, “I was hoping to get a look at that ass of yours.”

“Later,” Virgil promises, with a smirk of his own, and Thomas wants to teleport to Antarctica. “You can stay there, I’ll get you a plate.”

Desperate for something else to focus on, Thomas ends up watching Roman stand up stealthily from his chair and walk over to the bag of hot dogs.

“I would’ve brought it over to you,” he says, and Roman flinches, then retreats to his chair with the bag.

“Say you did, when Dee asks?” he pleads, opening a package with his claws and mangling one of the hot dogs in the process.

“Sure,” Thomas agrees, sitting back on his stump with his plate in his lap. “This is delicious, Logan, wow."

“Thank you,” Logan says. “The onion really brings the whole thing together, I knew I was forgetting something at home... hopefully the onion I left behind won’t rot in our fridge.”

“Hey, Roman, you weren’t supposed to get up,” Deceit complains when they get back with skewers, and Roman points at Thomas.

“He got them for me!”

“Ro, I _saw_ you,” Deceit says fondly, skewering six hot dogs at once and holding them over the fire without looking away from Roman.

“How are you doing that,” Thomas asks, indicating the six skewers Deceit is holding.

“Dee plays marimba,” Roman says. “That’s the one that’s like a xylophone but if you call it a xylophone the music witches yell at you. It also sounds less grating.”

“Oh,” Thomas says, not fully understanding how that was supposed to explain anything.

“I have to hold six mallets at once to play some things,” Deceit says. “Ro, weren’t you going to try the stir-fry?”

“Oh yeah!” Roman says. “Um, can you please get me a plate?”

“You don’t need to use the puppy dog eyes, I’d’ve done it anyway,” Deceit says, rolling their eyes and ruffling Roman’s hair, and Roman grins innocently at them.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.

“Liar,” Deceit says, narrowing their eyes, and somehow it sounds flirty.

Thomas makes eye contact with Logan across the fire and they both share a tired stare.

Meanwhile, Virgil is flipping out.

“Fuck! Make it stop!”

Remy is cracking up as the wind blows sparks towards Virgil, and Thomas winces; he knows firsthand how much that hurts.

“What are you hiding, then?” Roman asks Virgil, and Virgil rolls his eyes.

“Don’t be ridiculous, that’s just superstition.”

“Is not!”

“He’s hiding something,” Deceit says, watching Virgil move his chair to various spots around the circle and be followed by the sparks. “But it’s probably none of our business.”

“Whatever,” Virgil says. “Ugh. Roman, you said you were good at fire, will you make it stop?”

“Sure,” Roman says.

“I don’t like how that fire is crackling,” Logan murmurs. 

“Why not?” Thomas asks. “I think it’s calming.”

He’s immediately aware that he’s said something that everyone else around the fire considers ridiculous.

“Anyway,” Remy says after a moment. “This food is good.”

“Logan is a good cook,” Virgil says stiffly.

“What’d I say?” Thomas asks.

“Best not to explain,” Logan says with a sigh. “You didn’t grow up here, you wouldn’t understand.”

“It means someone’s going to die,” Moonshine says, and Thomas frowns.

“Okay,” he says. “But-- hm.”

“See, you’re thinking it’s stupid,” Virgil says, and Thomas shakes his head. “That’s science poisoning your brain--”

“No, I can make that work with what I know about science. It makes sense that wood burning in an unusual way could hurt something. If it pops, there’s gotta be gas coming out, so--”

Thomas realises that the others are staring, and stops.

“Well, anyway,” Virgil starts to say, and, like an idiot, Thomas keeps on going.

“But I don’t think it’ll hurt anything in this case since we’re outside. Anything in the smoke will just disperse into the atmosphere--”

“For god’s sake, say what you mean,” Remy tells him, and Thomas sighs.

“I mean it’ll... it’ll go into the sky. If we were burning wood in a fireplace, then anything bad in the smoke might end up inside the house, and then it’d stick around and have a chance to hurt you, but there’s nothing that’d keep the gas from escaping out here, so I think everything will be fine.”

“The rocks,” Roman says. “They’ll keep it in. There’s iron in those rocks. So we’ll be fine, but not for whatever fool reason this guy thinks is true. Mostly just cus whatever’s coming out will be trapped in the fire circle.”

Thomas gapes at him for a moment, and then shrugs.

“Alright,” he says, deciding-- what the heck, magic is real! Maybe superstition is fine too. “Either way. You guys probably know more about it than me. They don’t really teach us about magic in biochem.”

“We do know more about it than you,” Logan says. 

No one talks much while they all finish eating. The fire begins to die down, and none of them want to bother with putting more wood on it, so they start heading off to bed one by one. Moonshine follows Remy up to Cabin 5 a few minutes after Remy goes, and Thomas decides to go then too. The woods next to Cabin 2 try to reach out to him, and he shivers, grabbing his luggage from his trunk and carrying both suitcases in at once out of fear.

Thomas doesn’t sleep well. He doesn’t sleep well at all. He dreams about a laughing boy in a blue and white striped shirt who won’t meet his eye, and wakes up with an ache in his back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> where's patton, you ask? you'll find out eventually. as this story continues, i want you to keep in mind that it has a happy ending.
> 
> (also if you were Fooled(tm) by my attempt to make you think deceit was patton in chapter one please let me know, i hope it worked on someone)
> 
> I'm feeling sort of insecure about this story because of RSD (rejection sensitive dysphoria, it's an adhd thing where a perceived rejection causes overly strong negative feelings) so I'd really appreciate any comments/kudos, even if you're just quoting parts you liked without commentary. Anything you have to say about this story will be treasured forever.


	3. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for this chapter: nothing :O this is the only chapter with no warnings
> 
> actually the last chapter where i fix everything might not have triggers, or it might, im not sure how much ill have people discuss what happened afterwards.
> 
> enjoy! this is the last fluff-only chapter! many later chapters contain _prime_ fluffy moments, but this one is saturated.

Thomas doesn’t give up on sleeping until it’s light out. He leaves his cabin, breathing in the crisp morning air and squinting because the ground is obnoxiously sparkly with dew, and his head is hurting. Virgil is already outside, setting up a fire, and Thomas calls out,

“Sleep well?”

“Ha. Funny.”

Thomas begins to collect kindling alongside him, and Virgil vents his frustration as they work.

“Last night, not only did I have to listen to the curse on the car all night, but there was something weird on the other side of our cabin. It’s freaking me out.”

“I know what you’re talking about,” Thomas murmurs. “I felt it too, tugging on me--”

“The annoying thing about starting the morning fire,” Virgil interrupts, and Thomas remembers that he’s not supposed to talk about this stuff, “is that everything’s wet from the dew. So we’ll have to set this all out in the sun to dry off, except the logs will stay damp longer and we’ll get tons of smoke anyway.”

“That sucks,” Thomas says.

From across the creek, cows start mooing, and Thomas and Virgil gather twigs in a peaceful silence.

Then Cabin 4’s door slams open, and Roman comes sprinting out in his socks, almost tripping over his own feet, to stand by the fire circle and stare in the direction of the creek.

“What’s up,” Thomas calls out, standing up straight to peer at him.

“Cows,” Roman says. “Nobody told me there were cows. God, I want a cow. I’d be so nice to it and give it grass every day and pet behind its ears and brush the bugs out of its fur.”

Yawning, Deceit pushes open the screen door with a creak.

“Roman,” they call. “Come change out of your PJs.”

Roman’s PJs are patterned with gemstones and gold coins, and Thomas wonders if part-dragons have hoards.

“Fine,” Roman says. “Did you know there’s cows?”

“Wow,” Deceit says, as Roman trudges up the hill. “Oh my god, are you only wearing socks?”

“I got excited,” Roman says with a pout.

“So... I heard you’re giving us rice in exchange for spinach?” Virgil says, and Thomas nods, breaking a very long and thin stick into smaller twigs. “Fuck yeah. Logan buys a lot of spinach for some reason, I can’t get him to stop.”

“Spinach is good,” Thomas says, and Virgil makes a face. “Um, I’ve been meaning to ask-- what was that static sound you made yesterday?”

“You mean--”

Virgil makes the sound again, and Thomas flinches, throwing his handful of kindling in Virgil’s face to hold him off as he scrambles away from him and then stops.

“Sorry,” he says. “Yeah, that.”

Virgil heaves a sigh, and gathers up the sticks Thomas threw at him.

“It’s fine, I should’ve expected that reaction. It’s a fear spell, one of the simplest ones. It used to be used all the time, but people started training their kids to resist it, so it’s a good test of whether someone grew up around magic, which is usually all you need to tell whether they’ve got magic or not.”

“Oh,” Thomas says. Then, because he really, really wants to learn _something_ magical from this whole experience, he asks, “Can you teach it to me?”

“I dunno,” Virgil says. “You’re starting late, and you weren’t powerful enough to be found and adopted by some witch before now, so you’d need a pretty strong affinity for fear magic to do much with it at this point.”

“How do I know what I have an affinity for?”

Virgil shrugs.

“Usually we just have a combination of what our parents do. You could probably figure it out by just trying stuff. That’s what we do, we just try the stuff our family already has and that works most of the time, but I guess you have more options to choose from.”

Thomas sighs. Okay, just think of it like... Ollivander’s. 

“Where do I even start?”

Virgil pauses, thinking about it, and spreads the sticks he collected out on the grass to dry. Thomas follows suit, and the two of them amble over to the bank of the creek, a rocky beach that extends about fifteen feet from the end of the grass to the edge of the water.

“Hm, there’s quartz here,” Virgil says, picking up a rock to inspect it. “Uh, you could start with-- well, Speech is fairly common. I could try and teach you it, see if you have it.”

“Sure,” Thomas says, figuring he may as well. “How do I do it?”

“You tell someone to do something,” Virgil says, “and you picture the whole world agreeing with you. That’s where the layers come from. Even if you have it, it’s hard to learn unless you really want to control people.”

Thomas has a feeling he’s not going to be very good at this.

“Okay, so... should I just try it?”

“Go ahead,” Virgil says, eyes sparkling with amusement. “But be careful about the orders you choose when you’re first learning, because you might not be able to undo it when you need to.”

Thomas pauses.

“Are you really okay with me practicing on you?”

Virgil nods.

“I don’t think you’ll get it for at least a few days, anyway. Not well enough to make me do anything.”

“Aight,” Thomas says, shutting his eyes and breathing in deeply, imagining a legion of people breathing with him. “Clap.”

Virgil snickers, and Thomas flushes.

“Good try. Why’d you shut your eyes?”

Thomas opens them and shrugs. “You said to picture the whole world backing me up.”

Virgil laughs at him again.

“Not literally. Just give yourself depth, y’know? You’re the most important thing around, the trees would grow ears to listen to you.” He pauses. “That’s a saying.”

“Clap,” Thomas tries again, and nothing happens. “Clap. Cla _p_.”

“Woah,” Virgil says, eyebrows furrowing. “You had an extra layer there, on the P sound. Try again. Do you remember how that felt?”

Thomas nods. It was like an echo happening in unison with his voice.

“Clap,” he says. Virgil shakes his head. “Clap!”

Thomas can’t get it to happen again.

“Try something different,” Virgil says eventually. “You’re just saying the word now without focusing on the meaning.”

“Blink,” Thomas says, and Virgil happens to blink right after he says it. He cackles, pumping his fist in the air, and Virgil rolls his eyes.

“Pick a different thing. That one’s something I do anyway.”

“Scream.”

Virgil shakes his head again, and they go on trying. Thomas switches words every once in a while, but never manages to get that layering effect a second time.

The sound of gravel crunching under tires signals that it’s time to stop. Remy’s black car drives back into the clearing, and he parks up at Cabin 5. Virgil and Thomas move over to the firepit, and Thomas sits on a picnic table bench, watching as Remy gets out of his car and walks around to his trunk.

He takes two wicker baskets full of flowers out of the trunk, and Virgil gasps, jaw dropping.

“God, he’s so pretty,” he complains to Thomas, as Remy walks down the hill, a basket on each arm.

“Good morning.”

Remy smiles at them as he sets the baskets down on a table and gently digs through his flowers.

“It’s better now that you’re here,” Virgil says, and Remy grins. “Those flowers are beautiful.”

Remy takes a stem of pinkish-orange snapdragons from his basket and holds it out to Virgil.

“And yet they pale in comparison to you,” he says, tucking the flower behind Virgil’s ear and smirking at him.

Virgil flushes, and Thomas sighs, rolling his eyes. He can’t believe he’s stumbled into an actual fairy tale romance and he’s not even one of the main characters. What a ripoff.

“What are the flowers for?” he asks, to change the subject.

“Ah, I felt weird af not having any with me, since they’re like, all over my house at home, so I took some shortcuts back to Georgia this morning--”

Considering every other ridiculous thing that has happened to Thomas in the past day, this should not surprise him. But it does.

“Georgia? We’re in _Missouri_ , though.”

Remy scoffs, and rolls his eyes.

“I told you, I took shortcuts,” he says, taking an insulated mug out of the pocket of his leather jacket and loudly slurping from it. Thomas blinks; the mug should not have been able to fit in there. “Anyway, Virge, I was thinking you and I could press flowers today? And anyone else who wants to join, of course.”

“That sounds-- good, Rem,” Virgil says. “I bet I could teach you a light spell you could use for plants.

“Oh, please do,” ‘Rem’ says. “Grow lights are so expensive and I’ve been wanting to expand for months but I just don’t have the money. And it’d be soo much easier to raise magical plants that have special light needs if I could control the colour instead of finding bulbs with a range that includes what I need and getting filters to isolate that colour.”

Thomas is about to flee to his cabin when Roman and Deceit come back out holding hands. Roman is skipping ahead just enough that Deceit has to let go of his hand. He’s wearing a red tank top and a pair of shorts that have at least ten tiny pockets, along with a pair of hiking sandals. With all the exposed skin, Thomas can see that Roman is a lot scalier than he first thought, especially around his ankles and collarbones. The scales are ruby red and reflect light in the same way as polarised sunglasses, resulting in a sort of radiant, staring-straight-at-the-sun effect. Thomas is aware that he’s gaping at Roman, but last night he said he liked Thomas’s reactions, so until he says stop, Thomas isn’t going to expend any extra effort tiptoeing around him.

With all the staring at Roman’s sparkly joints, Thomas doesn’t even notice that Deceit is wearing a skirt until they get closer. There’s runes embroidered around the hem in silvery-blue, which matches Deceit’s scales. Theirs aren’t nearly as flashy as Roman’s.

“Are the cows still around?” Roman asks, and when Virgil shakes his head, he pouts. “Dee, you made me miss the cows,” he whines.

“You had fun with me, though, right?”

Deceit is smiling, dimples out, and Roman grumbles-- Thomas thought that the two of them coming down would free him from coupley stuff, but now he just has to deal with twice as much.

“Yeah, but _cows_ \-- what are these flowers for?”

“Those are mine,” Remy says. “I’m sharing them, though. I thought it might be fun to make wreaths or press them.”

“They’re so pretty,” Deceit says, as Roman takes their hand and pulls a ring off one of their fingers to twist the stem of a flower around it.

He slides the ring back on their finger, and says, “Not as pretty as you” right as Logan comes out of Cabin 2.

“Logan! Thank god you’re here,” Thomas calls. “Everyone’s flirting and being gross, I just heard ‘not as pretty as you’ said for the second time this morning.”

There’s a long pause, and Thomas tries to figure out what he’s gotten wrong now.

“Nice day out, Lo,” Virgil says casually.

“Well, thou art more lovely and more temperate, as the saying goes.”

Thomas groans.

“You guys! You guys are gonna kill me!”

“Don’t be so dramatic,” Logan says. “Are we gonna start a fire?”

“Virgil and I collected wood,” Thomas says. “We were waiting for it to dry first.”

“Are we doing breakfast together?” Deceit asks, as Roman starts building the fire.

“I already ate,” Remy says. “But I guess I’ll hang out with y’all if you want.”

“Sure, fine,” Virgil says, and Remy takes another sip from his mug.

“Great. Oh, also, I got the ingredients for that cat ear potion, if you were serious last night.”

“Fuck yeah,” Virgil says.

“Alright! After breakfast then, how’s that sound to you?”

“Nice.”

Thomas sighs, and watches Roman gallivant between the woodpile and the fire circle.

“Hey.”

Thomas looks over to see Deceit sat on the bench next to him.

“Oh, hello.”

“Any idea what your affinity is yet?”

“Nope.”

“Wanna learn some runes?”

“Sure.”

Deceit gets out a sharpie and starts writing directly on the picnic table.

“So--”

“Is that allowed?”

Deceit rolls their eyes.

“Oh, definitely. Anyway, here’s-- memorise these arrays and then get back to me.”

They finish scribbling on the table, and Thomas leans over.

“I don’t even know what the runes are called,” he says, and Deceit heaves a sigh.

“Seriously? Ugh. Okay, this one’s ansuz...”

Thomas learns the names and meanings of six runes.

“You might not even be able to do this,” Deceit says, and Thomas sighs.

“Then why bother--”

“I mean, the magic of runes comes from an ingrained understanding of what each one means, so that when you put them on something, they let you interface with your magic and direct it how you want to. Like, I don’t even need to put them on something, I can just visualise them hard enough and...”

Deceit trails off, and Thomas watches in confusion, trying to figure out what they’re trying to make happen as they shut their eyes and frown.

The picnic table stops being solid for long enough for Thomas to fall through the bench and land on his ass.

“See?”

Thomas crawls out from under the table, rubbing his head, which he banged against the bottom surface of the table when he tried to get up again, thinking it’d still let him through.

“So it’ll take me forever to learn how to do anything with runes.”

“Yup,” Deceit says. “You’re learning a new language. Isn’t it fun?”

“I guess,” Thomas says. “Um... if I have magic already, can’t I just use symbols that already mean something to me? Like, I don’t know... English letters?”

“Okay, what does the letter L mean,” Deceit asks, and Thomas opens his mouth and then closes it again. The letter L doesn’t have a meaning. “Exactly. You have to use runes, because they were created with meanings and it’ll make it easier to have other people check your work.”

“Please just give me a result,” Thomas says. “I want to make something happen with magic, I want to see it happen like Harry Potter waving his wand for the first time.”

Deceit heaves a sigh and scribbles two runes onto the table.

“Tell me what these are,” they say.

“Oh shoot,” Thomas says. “I know this. Um...”

“Don’t overthink it.”

“Isa, and... Sowulo?”

“And what do they mean?”

“Ice and Sun.”

“Yes. Sowulo also means health. This is the array I put on the rock last night.”

Deceit reaches into the pocket of their skirt and puts a very small wooden token down on the table.

“Write them on this and try to make it be cold.”

Hm. Deceit is providing far less specific instructions than Virgil did. Thomas takes the sharpie and tries to plan his approach. Making it colder will involve removing heat, but he can’t just remove heat, because it won’t leave without a colder place to leave to. 

“You’re trying to use science on it, aren’t you,” Deceit says, and Thomas shrugs.

“Maybe.”

“Quit that. I don’t know anything about science and it still works. Just try and make it more cold. You can imagine the cold like an invisible substance if it helps--”

“That will not help,” Thomas says. “Jeez. Okay, I’ll just do it.”

Thomas takes a deep breath, uncapping the sharpie with a squeak, and slowly lowers his hand to the table. Okay, here goes nothing.

Thomas writes the runes on the token.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> check out that pathetic, sad little cliffhanger that only exists so i can do a different, better cliffhanger in a later chapter (ending the chapter here keeps the word counts slightly more even)
> 
> as always i love comments. i eat them for breakfast to kickstart my metabolism :)


	4. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: creepy moment implying past mutilation, body modification (cat ears on purpose with magic), brief alcohol (no one gets drunk)
> 
> this chapter... is a masterpiece. i love it.

The temperature of the wood drops very quickly for a moment.

Then it stops, rapidly warming up again, and Thomas sways as he suddenly develops a migraine.

“Oh, that hurts. Ow. Crap.”

“Hm. You okay?”

Thomas nods, and then shrugs.

“I don’t know. What-- why does my head want to kill me all of a sudden?”

“Dee!”

Thomas glances towards the source of the voice to see Roman with his hands on his hips, levelling a stern glare at Deceit, who has their hands folded innocently in their lap.

“Yes, dear?”

“You didn’t warn him?”

“That must have slipped my mind,” Deceit says, and Thomas cannot tell whether or not they are being sincere.

“Warn me about what?” he asks, and Roman heaves a sigh.

“When you use more magic at a time than you’re used to using, it hurts. Of course, you’ve never used magic before, so... any magic use you do is going to hurt.”

“But earlier when Virgil tried to teach me Speech it didn’t hurt when I sort of got it.”

Roman draws back, and Thomas backpedals

“I mean-- I can’t actually do it. I just got it once, on part of a word.”

“Still,” Deceit says. “Usually it’s discovered someone has the Speech when they use it on accident in a stressful situation. The fact that you managed even that much within hours of learning magic existed is... I’m not sure what to say about it.”

“I’ll be honest, that makes me sort of nervous,” Roman says.

“I don’t think I want to be able to use Speech,” Thomas says. “It creeps me out. Gives me the heebie-jeebies.”

“Seriously though, it doesn’t make any sense that you could Speak at all with how weak your magic is,” Roman says. “There’s something...”

Roman trails off, and Thomas takes a moment to notice that he’s looking at Deceit. The two of them hold eye contact for a little bit and then Deceit rolls their eyes.

“I’d really rather perish,” they say. “I know exactly what you want me to offer. I’d rather die.”

“You’re sure?” Roman wheedles. “He could really use the help, knowing where to start.”

“No,” Deceit says. “He’ll live. So there.”

“Whatever,” Roman says.

“What are you talking about?” Thomas asks, and Deceit sighs, stretching.

“I can do this thing, with healing magic, where I--” they wave a hand as they pause, trying to find the right word-- “y’know. Shove it in you and make it tell me what you can do. It’s really invasive though, since I’d end up knowing way more about you than just that.”

“Yeah, no thanks,” Thomas says. “I’ll just... figure it out by trying different things, like Virgil said.”

“You’ll figure it out eventually,” Roman says. “I--”

“Someone help me crack these eggs,” Logan says, and Virgil rolls his eyes, lifting a hand-- “No! I swear-- do _not_.”

Virgil cackles and goes back to the basket of flowers.

“Someone help me crack these eggs _into a bowl_.”

Thomas ends up volunteering even though he has no idea how to crack an egg, and once Logan sees his disastrous first attempt, he waves him off and cracks the eggs himself.

“Don’t take it personally,” Virgil says, seeing how Thomas is sulking. “Lo is just like that. He knows exactly how he wants things to be done and he’d rather do all the work himself than let someone else help out and do things different than he’s used to.”

“I’d consider that a strength,” Logan says, and Virgil rolls his eyes.

“Whatever helps you sleep at night.”

“I sleep just fine at night without any help, Virgil.”

Logan is frowning at his bowl of raw eggs as he says it, beating them with a fork. Thomas snorts.

“It’s an expression,” Virgil drawls.

“Are you going to help me cook breakfast?” Logan asks, and Virgil shakes his head cheerfully.

“Nope. Remy’s telling me about potions. It’s cool.”

“Alright,” Logan says. “In that case, I will not accommodate your recurring desire to lick the disposable top of the cinnamon roll icing tin.”

“Wait, let me help with breakfast, Logan,” Virgil says. “I can’t let you do all the work yourself. Do you want me to do the cinnamon rolls?”

“That would be wonderful, Virgil,” Logan says. “There should be a cookie sheet up in the cabin. Just use the oven in there, I don’t know how to cook those over a fire. Be sure not to broil them by mistake.”

“It happened _one time_ \--”

Thomas snorts, and pokes at the fire with a big stick Roman brought over from the creek.

“Thomas, I... hm. I can incorporate rice into the meal if you would like to contribute now? Or at supper again is fine, I’d just like to know.”

“Oh, um-- sure, I’ll wait ‘til dinner.”

Logan furrows his brow.

“Dinner was not-- oh. You mean supper.”

“Is there a difference?”

Logan sighs.

“Not for you, I suppose.”

So Thomas goes on poking at the fire as Logan cooks breakfast and Roman and Deceit do coupley things like put flowers in each other’s hair. Remy takes one of the flower baskets up to Cabin 2, and he and Virgil come back down twenty minutes later with the cinnamon rolls on a plate and flowers in their hair. It’s sort of like convergent evolution, Thomas muses; both couples put flowers in each other’s hair.

Actually, it’s possible Remy was copying Roman and Deceit, since he left after they had already started doing so.

The flowers in Virgil’s hair are all snapdragons, orange and pinkish like the sunrise, and Thomas wishes for a boyfriend.

“Roman, I’ve told you,” Deceit says. “That daffodil will not stay in my hair on its own--”

“Just a sec--”

Roman takes a hair clip out of his pocket and clips the flower into Deceit’s hair, holding up a mirror for them to look into with a wide smile on his face.

“Look!” he says. “You’re like Persephone.”

Deceit clenches their fist.

“Roman.”

“What? Do you like it?”

“I’m so angry I can barely think,” Deceit says. “How dare you. I’m blushing. You’re the worst.”

“I love you too!” Roman says, and Deceit hides their face in their hands, groaning dramatically.

“Couple goals,” Remy proclaims, as he sits down on the bench across from Roman and Deceit. “I modelled Virgil’s flower decoration after a peach, since he’s peachy-keen.”

“Oh my god that was horrible,” Virgil says. “I hate you.”

“Woah, take it slow, girl,” Remy says, slurping loudly from his mug, which now has a straw. “Hey, Lo! Those eggs look amazeballs.”

“Oh-- um. Thank you,” Logan says. He sounds supremely puzzled. “I’m almost finished, if someone can get plates and silverware.”

Deceit volunteers, probably to escape from Roman.

The eggs are actually pretty good, considering that they’re eggs. Thomas prefers the cinnamon rolls, though.

“Ready to do the potion, Virge?” Remy asks, as breakfast is wrapping up. 

“Fuck yeah,” Virgil says.

“Does anyone else want to watch me brew?”

Thomas is intensely interested in potions, so he follows them up the hill, expecting to be led inside Cabin 5. Instead, Remy stops at his car, and Thomas waits by the porch. Maybe Remy just has to get something out of there first?

“I’ve got my portable brewing station set up in here,” Remy tells Virgil, so Thomas goes back around the car to see.

Remy presses a lever on the body of the car, and the passenger side wall slides up and onto the roof.

The car is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.

“Wow,” Virgil says. “This is a really impressive spacial expansion, did you do it yourself?”

“Nahh,” Remy says, pouring clear liquid into a shotglass from a vodka bottle.

“Is that alcohol?” Thomas asks, thinking maybe the bottle has just been repurposed.

“Yup,” Remy says. “It’s the only base that won’t influence the potion. One thing normal people do a lot better than us.”

“Nice,” Virgil says. “Do you need us to shut up?”

Remy shakes his head and reaches into his jacket pocket-- his jacket which Virgil is wearing, for some reason, and now Thomas can see up close that his arm goes much further in than it should. Virgil raises his eyebrows.

“Wow. It didn’t let me in that far.”

“All my stuff works that way,” Remy says flippantly, coming back out with a handful of tiny bottles and a dried flower. “Now hm, let’s see... You want 12 hours, 48 hours, a week?”

“You can make a potion last a whole week? That’s pretty... nonstandard.”

“Is it really? I just sort of do whatever,” Remy says, pulling his mug out of the jacket pocket as well and taking a sip of whatever’s inside. “How long on the cat ears?”

“48 hours sounds good.”

Remy puts back all but one bottle and dumps that one into the shotglass, and even though both liquids were colourless, it turns sky blue with a shimmer.

“Ah, damn,” says Remy.

“Is that not supposed to happen?”

“Well... hm, I’m trying to think.” Remy holds the shotglass up and looks at it in the sunlight. It casts weird, webby patterns on the surface of his work table, even though it looks crystal clear. “Alright, weird. There’s definitely something messing with magic fields around here? But it’s not going to change what the potion does. It’s a physical change.”

“Those shadows on the table looked like spiderwebs,” Thomas points out.

“There’s no spiders anywhere within over half a mile, maybe more,” says Moonshine from atop the car, and everyone but Remy flinches. “It’s weird because it’s fall. Maybe they’ve got a spider-repelling ward around the place, I bet that’s what’s causing it.”

“Good catch,” Remy says, combing his fingers through Moonshine’s fur and dropping the shed hair into the shotglass. He swirls it around with a glass stirrer like the ones Thomas uses for labs, and then holds it out to Virgil.

“You’re sure this won’t do anything weird?”

“We’ve made potions around wards before,” Moonshine says. “We were just surprised because we didn’t recognise the change this time. The ward won’t do anything bad, it just makes it look different.”

“Alright,” Virgil says. He throws it back, then doubles over coughing.

“Oh yeah,” Remy says, with a slurp from his mug. “It’ll taste like shit. Do you normally take potions like shots?”

“I mean I figured since it was alcohol-- oh fuck, that’s weird.”

“It’ll tingle a lot.”

“Yeah, I noticed. Um-- Remy--” Virgil frowns, and looks at one hand discerningly. “Am I supposed to grow a tail?”

“No,” Remy says. “Why?”

“Well, I’m tingling in a lot more places than just my head. Am I getting _shorter_?”

Remy pulls a notebook out of his pocket and leans forwards. His sunglasses slip down his nose, and he doesn’t push them back up. His eyes are so green that it’s a little freaky.

“Where are you tingling?”

“Uh, head, fingernails, wherever it is a tail would be-- also my tongue, which is shitty, makes it hard to talk. And my gums?”

Virgil lifts the edge of his shirt to wipe his mouth on it, and then gives up on that and just wipes it on his hand.

“You’re drooling lots,” says Moonshine helpfully. “That’s good, makes grooming easier. It’s probably because of that scar on your lip.”

“My tongue feels different,” Virgil says. “Remy, what the fuck. My tongue is rough.”

He’s lisping now, covering his mouth with his hand, and Remy is writing furiously in his little notebook.

“Should I go get someone?” Thomas asks.

“No need,” Moonshine says. “Remy, did you not mean to use the amplifying shotglass?”

“Fuck,” says Remy, with feeling. “Okay, hopefully you won’t turn into a whole cat--”

Virgil hisses at him, and then jerks back, shutting his mouth. Remy’s jaw drops.

“Woah. Girl. You have fangs.”

“What the fuck,” says Virgil. “Okay, the tingling’s slowing down, ‘cept in my head and uh, ass. ‘S gettin’ stronger there. This is so weird. And the magic sounds like purring, makes me wanna go to sleep.”

“I think I can see the start of ears,” Remy says, ruffling Virgil’s hair, and Virgil hisses again, swatting his hand away.

“Just-- I’m gonna sleep,” Virgil announces. He absconds into Remy’s cabin, letting the screen door slam shut behind him.

* * *

Thomas is sitting on Cabin 5’s porch watching Remy chop potions ingredients when Virgil wakes up. Logan is there too, also waiting. The screen door creaks, and Virgil peeks out. He’s cowering, just a little, making himself look smaller. And he does have cat ears, but he’s also got a fluffy tail and sharp canines that poke out of his mouth, denting his lower lip. He’s pouting, and Thomas notices that Logan has stood up.

“My nails retract now,” Virgil says, lisp even more pronounced than before his catnap.

He holds up a hand to demonstrate, and his tongue pokes out of his mouth as he concentrates. Tiny, sharp claws slide out of his fingers.

“So if anyone laughs at me, I can and will claw them to death.”

Remy snorts, and Virgil turns to him and hisses, ears flattening against his head.

“I’m not laughing at how you look!” Remy says. “I’m just pretty sure you could find a better murder weapon than _cat claws_.”

“I guess,” Virgil says. “How long until this wears off?”

“Ahh, 36 or so hours? Amplification strengthens the effects at the cost of duration--”

“I know that,” he snaps. “I was just wondering if you’d be able to give me a more exact estimate, you know, of when I’d be able to put my shoes back on.”

“Wha--”

Virgil lifts one foot into the air.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

His foot is a paw now, a legit cat paw with toe beans and everything.

“How are you walking,” Thomas asks, kind of awed that Virgil can even balance on feet like that.

“I don’t know!” he says. “I’m just doing it, okay? God, I should’ve fucking stayed asleep--”

“Virgil,” Logan says gently. “Come here.”

“Fuck you,” Virgil grumbles. “I don’t need to fuckin’ calm down, what I need is my normal body back, stat.”

“I’m not saying you should calm down. On the contrary, your annoyance is perfectly logical. I simply would like to offer you a hug.”

Virgil huffs out a sigh, and slumps. He looks very small and scared.

“Fine.”

He stalks over to Logan and lets himself be hugged, pouting the whole time and wiping a little drool on his sleeve-- Thomas thinks it’s cute, how the scar in Virgil’s lip along with his new teeth make him drool all over the place, which... doesn’t make him a furry, but is a little concerning.

Logan lifts Virgil up, and he makes a complaining sound but doesn’t try to get away. He doesn’t even seem very annoyed.

“You are unusually warm,” Logan says.

“No,” Virgil whines. “I’m _freezing_ , Lo. Why’re you standing in the shade, ‘s lame.”

“Make a chair in the sun, then.”

Virgil lazily extends a hand and wiggles his fingers to make a chair out of light, and Logan sits in it.

“You know it’ll be okay, right? Even if the potion doesn’t wear off, we can still take Remy to court--”

“No,” Virgil murmurs. “I like him, we aren’t suing him.”

“Can I touch your ears?” Remy asks, already reaching for them, and Virgil hisses, turning over in Logan’s lap and batting at Remy’s hand. “Please?”

Virgil grumbles and snuggles into Logan’s chest, but nods.

“I guess. ‘f you don’t make fun of me and you stop if I start drooling.”

Remy reaches out to touch the tip of one ear, and it twitches.

“That tickles,” Virgil complains. “Just-- yeah, like that. Lo--”

Logan is scratching behind his ears, and Virgil melts into him, shutting his eyes and stretching out in his lap like a cat laying down in the sun.

“You’re so cute,” Remy murmurs, and Thomas expects more hissing. Instead, there’s a quiet rumbling sound, and Remy gasps. “Oh my god, are you purring?”

“Fuck you,” Virgil mumbles.

At that point, Thomas gets a little uncomfortable being a fourth wheel, so he heads back down to the campfire to see what Roman and Deceit are up to.

“Good day, Thomas,” says Roman, claws scrabbling at the flap on a cardboard box, one with faded writing on the side saying _mancala_. “Deceit found this in the cabin, but we’re having trouble getting it open to play, could you--”

Thomas takes it and gently pulls the flap out of its slot, and Roman cheers.

“Well done!” he says.

Thomas slides the mancala board out of the box, and then opens it. The hinges are squeaky, but the wood is very smooth, and the stones inside are uniform and well polished, with one exception. Roman gasps when he sees it, face going pale.

“What?” Thomas asks.

The stone in question is flat, light blue, and translucent, and Roman picks it up gingerly and holds it out to Deceit.

“Look!” he says, pain clear in his voice like lightning at night.

“Oh,” says Deceit, horror dawning on their face. “Oh, my god. That’s someone’s scale--”

“I know!” Roman says, voice jumping up higher. “It’s got the root attached too, so it definitely wasn’t just shed, someone pulled somebody’s scale off to replace a missing mancala stone! What the fuck!”

“That’s bad,” Thomas guesses. “Isn’t it.”

“It’s like... imagine you opened this game, and found a human tooth standing in for one of the stones,” Deceit says.

Thomas shudders. Ew.

“Or a toe,” Roman says, and Deceit rolls their eyes.

“Yikes,” Thomas says. “But how do you know someone pulled it off?”

“When our scales shed,” Deceit says, “they leave behind a new scale over the root, and the root starts growing another one underneath. But this _is_ a new scale, and someone pulled the root off with it. You can tell it’s new because there’s no second layer growing under the main scale.”

Roman is beginning to get agitated. Deceit grabs his hand, and he settles down immediately, sitting heavily on the bench of the table and leaning back against it.

“This is so messed up,” he says. “Oh my god.”

“There’s nothing we can do about it now,” Deceit says, sighing and dropping the scale back onto the board. “Let’s put this away. I don’t feel like playing mancala anymore.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hm... whose scale is that? what is it doing in the mancala set? how did it get there?
> 
> these questions and more will be answered in later chapters! stay tuned!
> 
> if you comment i will adore you forever uwu <3


	5. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: violent intrusive thoughts, comparing an abused kid to his dad lite (this trigger occurs again in later chapters), past kidnapping (mentioned in almost every chapter after this), past child abuse, gun discussion, past mind control (worse than previous chapters)
> 
> also, the photo of the bridge in this chapter is a photo of a real bridge that i've played on multiple times. my dad took the photo. i don't remember if i've mentioned this, but this setting is actually based on a real place in Shannon County, Missouri. this story is, in fact, set in Shannon County, which is in southern Missouri. Missouri is in the midwest united states (the one with seven other states bordering it lol). the terrain has lots of caves, trees, hills, et cetera. it's a Karst topography, so it's got caves, springs, and sinkholes. the rural Ozarks is also one of the most superstitious places remaining in the country. i figured it was a good place to set a thriller/horror/mystery type story, since i know the setting intimately and there's never any cell service there.

There’s a knock on Thomas’s door. He’s been hiding out in his cabin ever since finding that scale in the mancala set, staring up at his ceiling and trying not to think about how much force it would take to pry off one of Roman’s scales. It’s distressing. Not for the first time, Thomas wishes his brain could just be normal instead of giving him these horrifying intrusive thoughts of taking a pair of pliers--

Anyway. Thomas gets up and opens the door to see who it is.

It’s Deceit. This close up, with no incomprehensible runes to distract him, Thomas notices that their scales shimmer yellow from certain angles.

“Roman needs a distraction. There is a bridge a minute’s drive down the road. We were planning to drive down there and see if there’s minnows, snails, et cetera. Would you like to join us? The others are coming along as well.”

“Oh, sure,” Thomas says.

“Bring a change of clothes, in case you fall in the creek. We’re leaving in five minutes.”

The only extra clothing Thomas has with him is a pair of hot pink booty-shorts that Joan told him to pack “for luck.” They’re perfect in this case, though, since they’ll fit in the pocket of his raincoat. Yes, he’s bringing his raincoat. It’s the only jacket he has with him, and he needs pockets that won’t fall in with him, if he does fall.

Thomas rides in the truckbed with Virgil, Logan, Moonshine, and Remy. Roman takes shotgun.

The ‘bridge’ isn’t really a bridge in the normal sense of the word; it’s just a dam-shaped concrete structure that the creek flows through and across. On the downstream side, there’s chaotic-looking rapids as the water rushes down rocks, but the upstream side is peaceful. The bridge’s surface is coated in a thick, soft-looking layer of algae.

  
[high res](https://imgur.com/of2pfro.jpg)

Virgil jumps out of the truckbed and lands on his feet, then cackles. He sprints out onto the bridge and then slips, landing right on his ass in the water.

“Oof,” Remy says.

“Fuck,” Virgil says, sighing. “Great, okay.”

“Come change into dry clothes,” Logan says. “Or at least let your hoodie dry.”

Virgil grumbles his whole way back to the truck.

Thomas takes his shoes and socks off to walk onto the bridge, much more careful than Virgil was after seeing him fall, and discovers that the algae that looked pillowy-soft from the truck is actually a slippery death trap. Figures.

Virgil comes back around the truck with no hoodie, looking very put-out about the whole thing. Roman looks up from the water to greet him and then notices his exposed forearms, which are heavily tattooed in blue ink. He gasps.

“You--” he stutters. “You were-- you’re-- Anx?”

Virgil flinches, and Thomas can see his throat move as he swallows.

Logan stops poking at a pile of wet leaves with a stick from further along the bridge, and looks up.

“Virgil and Anx are different people. Don’t call Virgil that.”

Roman looks back at Virgil, confused.

“But those tattoos--”

“What’s up with the tattoos, anyway,” Remy asks, from secure, dry land.

“Um--” Virgil shuts his eyes, and swallows. “You know, uh, the Barry Kidnappings? Yeah.”

Remy’s confusion morphs into horror, and Thomas feels very out of the loop.

“Those tattoos are Anx’s tattoos, I’m sure of it,” Roman insists. “Why are you trying to lie to me? I’m not going to treat you like some sort of pitiful victim when I was literally there--”

“Logan,” Virgil says, stepping backwards out of the water. “Logan, tell them, I can’t say it.”

“Virgil has dissociative identity disorder,” Logan says, and Virgil groans and facepalms.

“Not like that,” he complains. “Fuck. I’m going.”

Virgil stalks away, cat ears twitching in annoyance as he flees down the road.

“Oh,” Roman says, mouth hanging open.

“What’s going on?” Thomas asks, as Remy follows Virgil, taking his mug out of his pocket and slurping like nothing all that important is going on.

“Oh, man,” Deceit says. “It’s like... really complicated.”

“And scary,” Roman says. “Don’t forget scary.”

“Yeah, that too,” Deceit adds. “It involves a lot of very scary things that happened almost two decades ago. I’d love to tell you all about it, but I wasn’t there.”

“I should go after him,” Logan says quietly, carefully working his way back to their side of the bridge.

“Oh, I’ve got it, girl,” Remy says, coming back down the road with his straw still in his mouth as he speaks. “He’ll be okay.”

Logan makes a face.

“I think I’m missing something here,” Thomas says, and watches as it dawns on everyone that he grew up without magic.

“There was a warlock,” Remy says, “a couple years back who kidnapped about fifty children, and they didn’t find them for almost five years. I did a project about it for school.”

“That’s hilarious,” Virgil says, and Thomas turns to see him in Remy’s jacket, leaning against a tree. “What, a powerpoint? Bullets saying _first he gave them ugly tattoos, then he shot at them with guns to test his stupid protection magic?_ Right, okay.”

Roman is looking at him with a fragile look on his face, and Virgil-- or is it Anx?-- smirks.

“Yo yo, RoRo.”

“Anx!” Roman says, standing up straight and then faltering. “I mean-- are you?”

“Yeah, I am,” Anx says, smile a little crooked. “I gotta say, it’s weird being in the driver’s seat on a sunny day like this one. Not that I ever learned how to drive. Is this the friend you always went on and on about?”

Anx jerks his head towards Deceit, and Roman nods.

“Yeah, you were right. He didn’t forget about me.”

“I’m always right,” Anx says lightly. “Weird to meetcha, Dee.”

“Same to you,” Deceit says. “Thanks for saving my husband’s life, and all that.”

Anx snorts.

“It’s no biggie. You helped too. He’d’ve died before I could get him out if he didn’t have someone like you to remember.”

Deceit discreetly wipes his eyes, and Roman says,

“It is a big deal. You taught those light spells to any kid with an affinity even though they were your dad’s techniques and _nobody_ shares family knowledge. And then when I was dying without the sky you got me out even though you knew Barry was an empath and he’d be able to tell you did something. And when he caught you you wouldn’t ‘fess up. You basically saved everyone, Anx, you’re a hero.”

“It really wasn’t--”

“How long did this take?” Thomas interjects, and Anx sighs.

“Four years. I was five when he took us and nine when we got found. Told them all I was ten to start with, though, otherwise the seven year olds would’ve rioted.”

“I can’t believe he managed to keep that many kids under control in the first place,” Remy says flippantly. “If someone tried to shoot at me with a gun I’d--”

“He used the Speech to make us stand still,” Roman says, voice shaky. “He had kids he bribed to do it, the rest of us never saw any of them but rumour was they got to eat whenever they wanted and I wanted to tear them to pieces.”

Logan takes a step back, hands in his pockets, looking at Roman with an indecipherable expression on his face. It would’ve gone unnoticed if he weren’t standing in water, but the splash draws everyone’s attention.

“You--” Roman begins, and then stops. “Were you--”

“When your dad wants you to hurt other kids,” Logan begins, and then shakes his head. “He would’ve killed me. He lied about all kinds of stuff but not about that, I could tell.”

“He-- you-- your dad?” Roman sputters, heat shimmering off his scales in waves. “Your dad did all that and you want me to believe that you were any fucking different--”

“I wasn’t, back then,” Logan says quietly, and Roman stops.

“You smuggled us food,” Anx puts in. “You were a kid, I’d say you were pretty fucking different, Lo. You knew it was wrong but you couldn’t do anything, and if you had stood up to him you’d be dead and he still would’ve had enough other kids with the Speech to keep going. We talked about this, Lo, we agreed I’d piss him off and get moved to the test group and you’d stay on his good side. Remember? There wasn’t anything you could have done.”

“I remember,” Logan says. “But you’re wrong. There was something I could’ve done. I could have killed him. I was going to. I had a knife--”

Logan swallows, and the air goes still, no wind blowing anymore. Thomas feels out of place, like he shouldn’t be hearing any of this, like he’s being suffocated by his own intrusion.

“Sorry,” Logan says, and his grip on the air loosens. Thomas takes a deep breath. “We need to stop talking about this, I don’t want to make it storm.”

“Understandable,” Anx says, looking completely puzzled, and Logan snorts.

“I’m a weather witch now,” he says. “You ready to let Virgil come back out?”

“I guess,” Anx says, and sighs. “You grew up without me, you and RoRo. Virgil did too. Everything’s so weird, you know? Especially the cat ears, what the heck is up with those? Don’t get me wrong, I love them, but-- how?”

“I know,” says Logan. “That was Remy, it’s a 48-hour potion. But hey, you’re still shorter than me.”

Anx snorts, and stands up straight from leaning on the tree.

“Well, bye, I guess. Stop looking at me, we’re self conscious.”

Thomas looks away, making eye contact with Roman, who still seems a little shell-shocked. Then he hears Virgil mutter,

“Who was it this time?”

“Anx,” Logan says. “Roman knows him. He loves the cat ears.”

“How would Roman--”

“He saved my life,” Roman explains, turning back towards Virgil, and Thomas also turns in time to see Virgil flinch.

“Can you--”

“Of course,” Logan says. “Everyone, we are pretending that didn’t happen.”

Virgil winces.

“I think I feel him watching still.”

“He probably just wants to make sure he didn’t mess anything up for you,” Logan reassures him. “Hey, is that a crawdad?”

He points at the creek, and Roman looks where he’s pointing excitedly.

“Where?”

Thomas thinks he’s probably exaggerating his excitement to keep Virgil from feeling embarrassed, so he follows suit.

“Oh! I see it! Wow, we don’t have those in St. Louis.”

“I don’t see it,” Roman whines. “Where is it?”

Thomas points, and Roman gasps, splashing as he steps off the bridge and into the calm water on the upstream side of the creek to lean over the crawdad. His shadow looms out over it as well, and it gets spooked, swimming almost too quick to follow and hiding behind a rock.

“What’s it like in the city?” Virgil asks quietly, from the edge of the water.

“There’s a lot of concrete,” Thomas says. “And you can only see about twenty stars on a good night.”

“What the _fuck_ ,” Remy says. “That sounds horrible.”

“At least there’s no coyotes to scare your dog,” Roman says, walking away from the bridge to go after the crawdad and scaring several minnows in the process.

“Actually,” Thomas says, “there are coyotes. And raccoons. I love raccoons, they’re all my little trash babies. They’ve got masks and man hands--”

“I know what a raccoon is,” says Virgil. “We have those too. How do people grow mushrooms in the city?”

Thomas snorts.

“We don’t. Most of us don’t grow any food, that’s kind of a hippie thing.”

“So, what?” Remy says, taking another loud slurp and sticking his hip out skeptically. “You just buy all your food at-- at the Jo-Ann’s?”

Thomas laughs and almost falls.

“No, that’s a fabric store for rich people.”

Deceit exclaims,

“You buy _fabric_?”

At the same time, Roman says,

“Oh! I know this one. City folk buy food at the Deer Bird.”

“Do you mean Dierbergs?” Thomas asks. “That’s also for rich people. Normal people get food at, like, Shop ‘n Save.”

Logan heaves a sigh.

“Are y’all done pretending not to know how normal people live?”

Virgil snickers, and Roman pouts as the crawdad swims through his fingers again.

“I really didn’t know the thing about the sky,” Remy says.

“I did,” Deceit says. “Roman, leave that crawdad alone.”

“Aw,” Roman complains, climbing back onto the bridge. “Whatever, fine-- oh my god _Dee_ ,” he gasps, apparently forgetting about the crawfish. He grabs Deceit’s arm and almost causes both of them to fall over. “Get me a minnow?”

He points at the water on the upstream side of the bridge, and Thomas can see the shadows of about fifty tiny fish darting about on the bottom of the creek.

“What would you do with a minnow?” Deceit asks, laughing.

“Take care of it! Duh!”

Amidst all the noise, Thomas looks over and see Remy reach over and stick his hand into the pocket of his leather jacket, which Virgil is still wearing. He takes out something shiny.

“Oh! Sorry,” Virgil says, pulling the jacket off, and Remy puts it back on. Thomas watches him look down at the thing in his hand-- a tiny glass bottle half full of something green and vibrant like trees under the bright silver sky of a rainy day.

“I’m gonna head back to my cabin for a nap,” Remy announces, cheerfully deflecting Virgil’s offer to walk back with him. “It was good meeting you guys.”

There’s a strange shadow cast across his face as he puts the bottle back into his pocket-- it’s empty now. Thomas never saw him drink it. He sets off down the gravel road, and Moonshine hops out of the truckbed and onto his shoulder as he passes.

Thomas begins to have a bad feeling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the last chapter with no death, so if you're here for the pre-death, you'll want to stop reading midway through next chapter. it was great having you! hope you liked this & please comment


	6. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: ...major character death (here and in the next few chapters). blood. car-related death. speculation about suicide.
> 
>  **important** : if you want to stop reading before the character death, stop once they get in the truck to be safe, or stop _immediately_ after "Hopefully they’ll all stay friends after this is over." if you're in the mood to cut things close.

The sun is beginning to set, and Thomas is happily exhausted, wearing his pink shorts because he realised very quickly how inevitable it was that he’d get wet if he was within ten feet of Roman, and the bridge is only thirty feet across. Roman has persuaded Deceit to catch a minnow for him, so there’s an orb of water floating in the air near Roman’s head with a tiny fish frantically swimming around within. Logan has pulled out a magnifying glass to study the algae on the surface of the bridge, and Virgil is sitting down in the water on the bridge with his legs hanging off the upstream side, watching minnows swim around his feet. They’ve gotten used to his presence, so they explore his toes pretty enthusiastically. He’s smiling, just a little smile that doesn’t show any teeth, but it’s still a smile.

“It’s getting close to dinnertime,” Thomas says, and Logan looks up from the water.

“Oh,” he says. “Twenty more minutes.” He looks back down.

“You said that twenty minutes ago,” Virgil says.

“No, I’m pretty sure I said forty more minutes twenty minutes ago,” Logan says, already absorbed in his algae studies again.

Virgil and Thomas make eye contact and start laughing.

“Roman, it’s time to let your minnow friend go,” Deceit says, and Roman pouts at him.

“Aw, c’mon, but--”

The orb of water begins to fall, and Thomas is within ten feet as Roman tries to grab for it and ends up flopping over into the water with a huge splash, so he gets a faceful of creek water. Virgil is just barely out of range, and he goes on laughing, but now he’s laughing at Thomas, not Logan. Thomas narrows his eyes, and splashes water in Virgil’s face.

Virgil stops laughing. He makes a spitting sound, trying to get the water out of his mouth. His ears twitch in annoyance.

“You’re going to regret that,” he says.

“Really?” Thomas says innocently. “Because I don’t regret anything at all. Are you gonna make me regret it?”

Virgil leaps at him. The minnows flee. He tackles Thomas into the water, and Thomas is thankful he was already sitting down on the bridge. He hits the concrete flat on his back, and he should have banged his head too, but-- it’s like the water presses back up against his head and keeps it from slamming into the concrete.

“Thanks,” Thomas gasps breathlessly to Deceit, as Virgil cups his hands to lift water out of the creek and opens them directly over Thomas’s face. Thomas sputters, and shoves Virgil off of him. “Oh, it’s _on_.”

“Was it not already?” Virgil says, and Thomas cackles as he splashes water at Virgil.

“Let me join!” Roman shouts, shoving Virgil off the bridge into the creek, on the upstream side, which is about three feet deep. Virgil flails, and hisses at Roman, waving his hand and directing a stream of water in his direction.

It’s impressive at first. The water lifts out of the creek and starts in Roman’s direction, but it quickly loses its form and falls back into the creek. Roman laughs his ass off.

“Oh my god,” he says. “Dee, did you see that? He tried to use regular old telekinesis on water!”

“Try lifting many small streams at once and combining them once they get to him,” Deceit says, and Roman’s jaw drops in indignation.

Virgil furrows his brow and flicks his wrist. A tiny, wobbling string of water rises out of the creek. He flicks his wrist again, and the first string collapses.

With a frustrated growl, Virgil starts using both hands, and eventually he manages to direct about a half a cup of water directly into Roman’s face, but he ends up splashing himself more in the process of figuring out how to do it.

“Does everyone have telekinesis?” Thomas asks, as Roman splashes Virgil right back.

“Basically,” Deceit says. “It’s extremely common, so people basically never list it during introductions unless they have unusual strength.”

“Oh yeah, what was with the introductions anyway?”

“It’s just so you know what you’re dealing with,” Deceit explains, as Virgil and Roman fight it out in the creek. “Like--”

Logan has slowly moved across the bridge in his study of the algae, and he’s actually pretty close to the splash fight. So when Roman tries to splash Virgil, and Virgil ducks, the water keeps going.

Logan is hit in the side of the face with a wave of water. He blinks, water dripping down his neck, and then turns.

“Who was that?” he asks.

“It was Virgil!” Roman accuses gleefully, and Virgil is still hiding out underwater, so he doesn’t have any chance to defend himself.

Logan narrows his eyes.

“You’re lying,” he says. He shuts his eyes, and Roman cocks his head to the side, confused.

A moment later, static fizzles through the air as a cloud forms above Roman’s head. The water level in their area of the creek drops perceptibly, about a half a centimeter, and Thomas feels the air grow more humid.

Roman looks up.

“Woah,” he says.

Virgil surfaces.

He looks at Logan, and then at the cloud, and rolls his eyes.

“Is this a responsible use of your powers?” he says, and Logan opens his eyes and takes a deep breath.

“He tried to tell me you splashed me.”

The cloud begins to disperse.

“Douse him!” Virgil shouts, and Logan rolls his eyes.

“Let’s get going,” he says, standing and tucking the magnifying glass into his pocket.

Thomas steps out of the water and is confronted with the dilemma of whether or not he should put his shoes back on, with his feet wet like this. On one hand, shoes take forever to dry, but on the other, it’s getting cold now that sunset has arrived.

“Want me to dry you off?” Deceit offers.

“You could have dried us off the whole time?” Virgil asks, and Deceit nods.

“Yes,” they say. “I could have. But you looked like you were having fun.”

“Sure,” Thomas says, amused. “Please dry me off.”

Deceit brings their hands together and then moves them in a circle like a mime turning an invisible crank, like they’re exerting force on something that doesn’t want to move. Thomas shudders as the water in his clothes condenses together and falls out, landing on the gravel.

“Thanks,” he says.

Deceit ends up drying off everyone except Roman, who doesn’t seem to want to leave. He’s watching the minnows swim along the bottom of the upstream side of the creek.

“Roman, come on,” Deceit says.

“Just a sec.”

“The sun sat ten minutes ago, get in the car!”

Roman rolls his eyes and hops in the truckbed with Virgil and Thomas, still wet, and Deceit climbs up into the cab and then calls back,

“Everyone ready?”

“Yup!” Thomas says.

Crickets have begun to chirp out their incessant tune as light fades from the sky, and Deceit cusses.

“What is it?” Roman asks.

“Headlights aren’t turning on. Wish Remy didn’t go back early, isn’t he good at this car stuff?”

“I can provide light,” Virgil offers.

“Better not,” Deceit says. “Magical light might attract something bad. I heard a story once about a giant hellbender-- well, anyway, I have good vision in the dark anyway.”

Thomas listens to the crickets chirping as gravel crunches under the tires of the truck, and marvels again at the fact that magic is real. Because holy crap. This is wild. His heart feels stuck too tight in his chest like it’s swelling up with happiness ~~or panic~~ at how much wider the world seems now that he knows, and-- Thomas feels good. Everything’s going well right now. He’s glad he booked a cabin here, glad he met all these people. Hopefully they’ll all stay friends after this is over.

“Hey,” Virgil says. “Is someone casting an illusion? I hear--”

There’s a bump, and something lands on the roof of the truck, skidding off into Virgil’s arms and screeching in pain. Shortly after, there’s another bump as the back tires roll over whatever caused the first bump, and Deceit stops the truck.

“What the--” Thomas starts to say, but Virgil is already shining purple light back the way they came.

There’s a pool of blood on the gravel road. The thing in Virgil’s arms-- it might be a cat-- is wheezing with a human voice, and Thomas sees a mangled lump in the middle of the puddle that might be groaning in pain. There's a weird, fluttery feeling in his chest, like his heart is trying to give out, and he feels like everything in him is reaching out for whatever is bleeding in the road, but--

“Oh my god,” Virgil says, voice wobbly. “Oh my god is that Remy?”

There’s a gurgling sound, and then a weak cough, and Deceit bursts out of the car to kneel by the lump that might be Remy.

“Breathe,” they say. Thomas snaps out of his daze and wraps his arms around himself, trying to pull away and hide within his own mind from the pain streaming off Remy's body. He can almost _see_ it-- but that's not quite right, because it's more like... He feels it, or he _could_ feel it if he chose to. He does not choose. “Ro, cover your ears. Virgil, can you use your Speech and remind Remy to breathe?”

Virgil is hyperventilating, his light flickering like a strobe as Deceit’s hands begin to glow. Deceit snaps,

“Hurry.”

“B-breathe,” Virgil chokes out, not using the Speech at all. He clears his throat. “ _Breathe_.”

It works that time, and Remy breathes, but Thomas can see a resigned look on Deceit’s face, which is lit by the glow from their hands; Virgil isn’t making any light anymore.

“Why are you in the road,” Deceit murmurs, and Thomas realises, in a sudden, terrible moment of clarity, that there’s nothing any of them can do. Deceit knows this, and they’re choosing to figure out how this happened while they still can.

“I think, think I tripped,” Remy rasps. “Must’ve passed out, since when I opened my eyes it was sunset and-- couldn’t move.”

Virgil breathes in sharply.

“That is very strange,” Deceit says. “You don’t have a spinal cord injury.”

“Yeah, I-- fuck. Drank an experimental potion trying to-- y’know, god-like powers and all that shit, it seems pretty immature in retrospect-- but I couldn’t move or do any of my usual magic.”

“Were there any other side effects?”

“Nah.” Remy breathes in shakily, and lets it out in a laugh that turns into coughing halfway through. “I’m gonna die, aren’t I,” he says. “Don’t lie to me.”

Virgil sobs, and Deceit’s hands stop glowing. Remy whimpers in pain, and Thomas winces as it surges around him, and he almost goes under.

“You are,” Deceit says. “I can’t fix this, unless anyone has a potion to restore lost blood or knows a spell to put it back. You’ve just lost too much.”

“Virgil,” Remy says, and his voice just sounds sleepy now, like he’s only about to head off to bed. “You got Moonshine?”

Virgil nods.

“Yeah.”

“Can you-- I know he’s a lot of work, but-- he can show you to my gardens if you need compensation--”

“Remily,” Virgil says, voice thick. “I would be honoured to have Moonshine accompany me through life. And to take care of your gardens, as well as I can.”

Remy lets out a relieved sigh.

“‘S too bad I never got to see your ass, like you promised.”

Virgil chuckles and sobs at the same time.

“I’d moon you right here if I could make myself move.”

“Good to know,” Remy says, and smiles. His eyes close.

He doesn’t say anything after that.

Moonshine drapes himself over Virgil’s shoulders and cries, yowling, warbley noises that make the hair on the back of Thomas’s neck stand up. Virgil puts one hand on Moonshine’s head and extends the other towards Remy’s body, using the most gentle motions Thomas has ever seen from him to lift it off the ground and into the back of the pickup. He situates Remy’s head in his lap and pets his hair, tears streaming silently down his face.

“I get the feeling he would want to be somewhere with flowers.”

Moonshine bobs his head.

“He had a spot picked out, back home. I’ll show you it. Snapdragons all over the place.”

Deceit stares at their hands for a long moment, then takes off their gloves, which are stained with Remy’s blood. They leave them in the road and get back into the driver’s seat. Roman uncovers his ears.

“Do you think he’s somewhere good?” Roman asks. “Like, I know we all have our own ideas about--”

“Yes,” Virgil says decisively. “Tons of flowers everywhere, I bet he’s got hair long enough to braid daisies into in the afterlife.”

Thomas feels the familiar shiver of eyes watching them, and holds his tongue. He isn’t so sure.

“Can someone else drive?” Deceit asks quietly, getting out of the car. “I was watching so carefully and I still didn’t see him.”

“Dee, Virgil said he heard illusion magic right before you hit him. It’s not your fault.”

“Roman, I couldn’t heal him.”

Logan volunteers to drive and gets in the driver’s seat, while Deceit climbs into the back and stares at Remy’s body.

“It’s not your fault,” Virgil says, voice raw and tired. “It’s really not.”

“Please stop,” says Deceit.

Logan starts driving.

“I didn’t get a picture with him,” Virgil mumbles.

“We should take a group picture,” Roman says. “Just in case, as soon as we get back. And Virgil, I might have one if you don’t mind weird angles and some blur.”

Virgil’s eyebrows shoot up, hopeful.

“Really? When, how?”

“You didn’t notice? I took tons of photos today.”

Virgil is silent for a long moment.

“I... guess I was too absorbed.”

They all gather in Cabin 2 (Thomas brings rice) and Roman swipes through his phone, showing Virgil a ton of pictures of Remy with flowers all around him. Deceit and Thomas stay outside with the body in shifts to make sure nothing takes it while Logan stress cooks.

It’s the first time Thomas has ever seen anyone die, and he wonders if that changes a person. He’ll probably need therapy after this.

They move onto the porch to eat because no one wants to eat alone, and Virgil disappears into the truckbed and comes back wearing Remy’s black leather jacket, looking at the others as if daring them to say anything to him about it. Thomas thinks it’s a little weird, taking a jacket off a dead person, but he’s not the one who promised to show Remy his ass, so he keeps his opinion to himself.

“I literally met him yesterday,” Virgil says, curling up against Logan’s side and letting his plate full of rice just sit there. Logan starts feeding him, and he just cries as he chews each bite, mechanically and without enthusiasm. “No offense, Logan, but this is the worst fried rice you’ve ever made.”

“I know,” Logan says. “I kept getting distracted.”

And Thomas finally speaks up about what’s been worrying him the whole night.

“Not to be paranoid but I think someone made this happen on purpose. Not-- not, like, one of us, but it doesn’t make sense otherwise, and I’m very afraid. I’m terrified.”

“You can sleep here if you don’t want to be alone,” Logan says, and no one tells Thomas he’s wrong.

Virgil leaves that night in Remy’s car to bury him, promising to Logan that he’ll be back by morning with the shortcuts Moonshine can show him. Thomas utterly fails to sleep until 2 am, too busy thinking about Virgil driving too slowly on the highway at night, a withering orange snapdragon tucked behind his ear, Remy’s body laid out in the backseat, and in his lap, a ball of fluff that no longer looks much like a cat, or anything at all, really.

Logan doesn’t sleep much easier. Around midnight he tells Thomas,

“Remy was lying.”

“What do you mean?”

“About the potion. There was no experimental potion. Not one for godlike powers, anyway.”

“But I saw him drink something,” Thomas says. “Back on the bridge. How do you know he was lying?”

“I’m an empath,” Logan says. “I can just tell.”

“So...”

“I think he did it on purpose,” Logan says. “Not... not getting run over. If you saw him drink something... I think he drank poison and planned to die in his cabin or somewhere else. I’m not sure. Don’t tell Virgil.”

Virgil gets back at 5 am without Moonshine (“He stayed with Remy,”) and he and Logan whisper to each other until, a half hour later, Deceit wakes everyone back up banging on the door.

“Is Roman with you guys? I can’t find him anywhere.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi there! i know it's been a while lol. what happened is I got insecure about the ending i had written for this story, and i lost the motivation to post. however, a commenter reminded me of this story a few days ago and since then i've been rereading stuff and going over things and i've realised that actually the ending is good and i should feel good.
> 
> sooo, basically, what i'm saying is, i might be too busy/adhd/whatever to update every few days, but i'll try to keep the time between updates down to less than two weeks. thanks for reading! comment/kudos if you wanna uwu


	7. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: death, house fire, past kidnapping, past child death, suicide-related discussion

“I woke up since I was cold and tried to call him, but there’s no signal out here and he left his phone anyway,” Deceit explains, as Logan ushers them inside to calm down and gets them to take their jacket off. They’re shivering. “He never does that, he always takes it with him everywhere and the last time he disappeared overnight was--”

Deceit cuts themself off and shakes their head, taking a deep breath before they keep going.

“I invited him to sleep over when we were little and let him use the bed and he wanted the window open and in the morning--”

“Breathe,” Logan says, getting a blanket out of the cabin’s closet and unfolding it to wrap around Deceit. A scrap of paper flutters out of the folds of the blanket and lands on the carpet.

“It was my fault,” Deceit says. “It was all my fault, if I had made him sleep on the floor they would’ve taken me instead. Or if I made him keep the window shut.”

“Falsehood,” Logan says. “You feel that you should have been able to do something because you were in the same room as him. You--”

Thomas tunes them out because he wants to know what that paper is. He goes over to pick it up. It’s an old newspaper clipping.

_Family of missing child gives up search after discovery of Barry Lab’s chilling mass grave_   
_The family of Patton Creek, the eldest child suspected to have been kidnapped by Logan Barry Sr., has given up on finding him alive after multiple bodies were recovered last Saturday from the cellar of Barry’s laboratory. Patton’s father told this reporter that he hopes the families of those still not found can find their children alive and well, but his family is exhausted from chasing ghosts._

_Patton disappeared one year ago at age 16 while staying in rented cottages with some older friends, all of whom have struggled with his disappearance in different ways. “Patton was our rock,” wrote September Affington in response to our letter. “I’ll never forgive Logan Barry for stealing him out of our lives.”_

_Patton’s age makes him an outlier amongst the kidnapped children, all of whom were younger than ten. His father has revealed that the boy had a rare time affinity, which may have made him desirable enough to be worth the extra effort required to kidnap an older child._

_“If I had known he had that affinity I’d’ve kept a much closer eye on the kid,” wrote Affington. “It sucks, knowing I could have changed something if I paid more attention.”_

_Time affinities are rare even among dragons. According to Patton’s father, the affinity runs in their family, but only shows up strongly enough to train every few generations. “When Pat was born, we just sort of knew he’d be the one. His scales were the same exact shade of (continued on page 1--_

There’s a corner ripped off, but there’s no more of the article here anyway.

“Holy crap,” Thomas mutters, “Guys--”

Logan looks over his shoulder.

“Wait, give me that.”

He snatches the clipping out of Thomas’s hands and pushes his glasses up.

“What is it?” Deceit asks.

Logan scans the article and then glances at Virgil.

“Well... Apparently they misattributed a kidnapping to my father. He only targeted children under ten, and this child was... sixteen.”

Deceit frowns.

“So, what, you wanna clear his name?”

“It says his parents stopped looking when the investigators found the bodies my father hid,” Logan says coldly. “If my father wasn’t the culprit their son might still be out there somewhere.”

“I think you guys are missing the point,” Thomas says. “It says he was staying in rented cottages.”

“Oh, there’s all kinds of cabins for rent in this area,” Logan says dismissively.

“How many of them accommodate magical people?” Thomas asks, and Logan opens his mouth to answer and then shuts it again, tipping his head to the side as he considers the question.

“This is the only one,” Deceit says. “Poppy Creek. Everyone knows that.”

“And something killed Remy,” Virgil says.

“I don’t think--” Logan starts to say, but Virgil shakes his head and cuts across him.

“I _heard_ illusion magic, Logan. And Deceit’s headlights wouldn’t turn on. I know he said he took some experimental potion, but, like... If he just passed out in the road Deceit would’ve seen him. There must’ve been something hiding him. Something wanted him to get run over.”

“Wasn’t Moonshine in a tree too?” Thomas says. “He--”

“He fell onto the roof after we ran over Remy,” Virgil says. “He climbed a tree to keep watch over Remy from someplace he’d be less vulnerable. But you’re right. Actually, he told me he tried to call out to us when it didn’t look like we were stopping. Did anyone hear him?”

Thomas shakes his head, and so do the others.

“So that settles it,” Virgil says. “Something made-- something made Remy die. Logan, I-- can you-- I want a hug.”

“Of course,” Logan says, voice soft. He pulls Virgil into a hug, and Deceit heaves a frustrated sigh and squirms out from under the blanket, reaching for their jacket.

“This is a waste of time,” they say. “Who is helping me find Roman?”

“I’ll help,” Thomas says.

“Us too,” says Virgil, and Logan nods.

“Good,” Deceit says. “Let’s split up. C’mon. Me and Logan, Thomas and Virgil. Don’t let each other out of your sight. If you find anything weird, come tell us _together_. I don’t want anyone further than ten feet away from another person for any length of time, got it? This is _serious_.”

Thomas nods.

“Virgil, you have to make sure Thomas stays safe,” Logan says. They’re still hugging. “Okay? He can’t do anything with his magic.”

“Yeah,” Virgil says. “I know.”

“Okay,” Deceit says. “Let’s get moving, people. Time is ticking. Logan, let’s look along the road. You guys can search around the clearing.”

 

Virgil heads down to the creek as soon as he leaves Cabin 2, and Thomas follows, unwilling to get too far away from someone who actually knows magic with how tightly his nerves are wound right now.

“So let’s cross the creek,” Virgil says. “Roman might’ve tried to go visit the cows.”

“Maybe,” Thomas says. “Virgil... I don’t really... I’m not sure someone killed Remy.”

“Really,” Virgil says, making a bridge of purple light over the creek with a wave of his hand. Thomas follows after. The bridge clinks as Thomas steps across it. “Then what the fuck do you think happened?”

Thomas pushes through the brush and past the trees which create a curtain on the opposite bank of the creek, blocking their view of the cabins and fire pit.

“Well--” Thomas pauses. Virgil is looking at him with a fragile, aggressive look on his face, like he knows he’s close to breaking and wants to prevent that no matter what it takes or who he has to hurt to do so. “Logan and I sort of think he killed himself.”

Virgil’s face falls, cat ears drooping, and he shoves back through the curtain of plant life and into the creek. Thomas starts after him, and takes one step into the creek before--

“Did you hear that,” Virgil says, voice shaky. “I’m gonna go check it out. _Stay here_.”

And Thomas suddenly cannot move. He hates the Speech more than anything else in the world right now.

“Hear what,” he says, as Virgil splashes back across the creek. “Wait! Virgil, we aren’t supposed to-- don’t leave me here!”

Virgil keeps going. He turns, once he reaches the fire pit, and looks back at Thomas like he wants to say something, looking almost afraid, but he doesn’t say anything. Thomas watches him trudge up the hill and into Cabin 2.

Each second that Virgil is gone, Thomas gets more and more anxious. Every little sound freaks him out, and his foot is freezing in the creek, and he’s getting a cramp in his calf. Is that-- is that smoke, shimmering in the air above Cabin 2?

No, Thomas tells himself. There’s no way.

And Cabin 2 bursts into flames. Thomas’s anxiety turns into full-on terror, and he tries again to move, tries to lift his foot out of the water, take a step, do _anything_. But he can’t. 

Thomas watches Cabin 2 burn, and about five minutes later, the hold on his limbs eases and he can move again.


	8. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay. Warnings: intense and repeated comparison of an abused guy to his dad, storm, more death, a ghost, gun mention, suicide discussion. murder?
> 
> I literally tried so hard to find somewhere to break this chapter up, but I couldn't, so it's long. It might actually be the longest chapter in this whole thing, wow. It's like... 3500 words long.
> 
> This chapter gets pretty intense. uhhhhh wow. ive wanted to post this part for ages, i can't believe it's finally happening. its so juicy... enjoy!

When Thomas gets to the bridge, Deceit is at the top of one of the rock formations on the side of the road, and Logan is standing in the shallow water on the bridge, shielding his eyes as he looks up at Deceit with a frown on his face. Deceit’s eyes are shut.

“You should come down from there,” Logan says, and Deceit shakes their head, grabbing the trunk of a small tree and leaning out over the edge.

“Don’t tell me what to do,” they say.

“It’s dangerous--”

“Shh,” Deceit says. “I gotta return the call, don’t I?”

“You said there isn’t cell service--”

“No, the call of the void,” they say, opening their eyes, amusement evident.

“What-”

“It’s all I can really do without him,” Deceit says, shrugging. “Hang out in high places and stare at the ground. And if something’s killing dragons around here--”

“Logan,” Thomas says, finally. He knows exactly why he eavesdropped for so long before calling out (it’s because Virgil is dead _Virgil is dead and it’s Thomas’s fault, it has to be_ ).

Logan turns, ankle deep in water, and so does Deceit. Logan is looking behind Thomas, which kind of freaks him out, so he looks over his shoulder and back at Logan, whose eyebrows are furrowed in concern.

“Where’s Virgil?” he asks, and Thomas stops short, glancing at Deceit before looking down at the ground and trying to swallow the lump in his throat.

“You two weren’t supposed to split up,” Deceit reminds him, voice cautious. Thomas makes a strangled sound, and Logan steps forwards with a frightening look on his face. Thomas stumbles back.

“Sorry,” Logan says. “Thomas, did something happen?”

Thomas can’t speak. He doesn’t know what to say or how to explain it, especially to Logan.

“Does Virgil need to be healed?” Deceit asks, and Thomas hesitates, then shakes his head.

“Can I use my Speech on you?” Logan asks. “I want to know what happened and you’re having trouble saying it.”

Thomas nods emphatically, relieved that he won’t have to stumble over the words, and Logan takes a deep breath.

“Tell me what happened,” he says, voice barely layered at all, and even though Thomas can feel the sudden tug to speak, it isn’t enough.

“Try stronger,” he says. “Please, I don’t-- I don’t want to say it but you need to know.”

Logan begins to look afraid, and Thomas’s guilt surges in his chest. For a moment, he feels like he might throw up, but the feeling subsides, leaving him empty.

“ _Tell me what happened_.”

Ah. Thomas lets his eyes shut as the words spill out without his control, about how Virgil heard something but made Thomas stay behind and how Cabin 2 just burst completely into flames with no warning. The pink light behind his eyelids suddenly dims, and Thomas opens his eyes to see clouds forming in front of the sun, right over the horizon.

“Are you doing that?” he asks Logan.

“Yes,” Logan says tightly. “Fire. Interesting.”

Deceit bristles, scales flashing yellow as they lift into-- spines. They’re spines. A warm breeze blows from behind Thomas, and he shivers.

“You don’t think Ro--”

“I don’t know what I think,” Logan says, voice even, emotionless. The air is now still, and even the creek seems quiet. “I met the two of you two days ago. I just think it’s weird, that your dragon disappears and then an hour later my boyfriend gets burnt alive in our cabin.”

“Roman isn’t anyone’s anything--”

“I thought Virgil liked Remy,” Thomas cuts in, voice shaky, and Logan looks over at him like he had forgotten he was there.

“We’re-- we were in an open relationship,” he says, deflating. “Deceit, I’m sorry. From what I can tell, Roman isn’t a violent person. If he was involved, it was an accident. I was out of line.”

“He has very good control, despite outward appearances,” Deceit says coldly. “He doesn’t burn things on accident. His sister says that even when he was first sleeping in his own bed he never burnt it once. He _wasn’t_ involved.”

“Does that happen a lot to dragons?” Thomas asks, curious.

“That’s beside the point,” Logan says. “I’m serious. I’m sorry that I immediately jumped to suspecting him, it was unfair of me, especially with how worried you are. I hope-- I hope he’s okay.”

“Me too,” Deceit says stiffly. They look at Logan and sigh. Their spines lay back down to look like scales again with a shudder, but the ones around their eyebrows and nose stay raised, making them look like one of those snakes with the rough scales. A bush viper. They climb down from the rocky outcropping, and Logan’s shoulders relax a little bit. “We should head back to the cabins. I don’t like this weather.”

“I’m sorry about that too,” Logan says, as the three of them set off down the gravel road. “I’m usually fine under pressure, but this is... It’s all I can do to keep it from exploding on us.”

“How do you become a weather witch?” Thomas asks.

“They’re very rare,” Deceit says. “Anyone can learn, but it’s incredibly difficult and often very uncomfortable if you succeed. It makes you vulnerable and ridiculously powerful at the same time, since the weather near you follows your emotions. Anyone can tell how you’re feeling with just a glance at the sky.”

“I’ve made a lot of mistakes,” Logan says, with a grimace. “Nobody’s died yet, but documented studies of past weather witches in training say at least two people will die and one will sustain a critical injury from my weather magic before I master it. More, if I don’t.”

Thomas can’t help feeling like it’s tempting fate to say that out loud, around here.

“It’s why there’s so many sanctions on it,” Deceit says. “I knew there was a new one training around here, but I’m surprised they let _you_ try it, considering who your father was, and what happened the last time they let someone from Shannon County try.”

Logan flinches.

“What happened last time?” Thomas asks.

“There was a huge, um... Well...”

“Have you heard of the Tri-State Tornado?” Deceit says.

“I’m not sure,” Thomas says. “Maybe?”

“It killed almost 700 people in March 1925,” Logan says. “It was the deadliest tornado in US history.”

“And... a weather witch did that?”

“Yes,” Logan says.

Thomas doesn’t know what to say, so he lets silence stretch out as they walk.

“My father is still alive,” Logan says, and Deceit stops short.

“What?”

“They haven’t killed him yet. He got sentenced but they keep stalling and it terrifies me. You said considering who my father _was_ , so I figured I should clarify.”

“Fuck,” Deceit says. “Hey, once we find Roman, let’s break into jail and fucking murder your dad, okay?”

Logan’s jaw drops.

“That’s illegal,” he says.

“It’s been like ten years!” Deceit says. “He should already be dead, right? Come on! Don’t tell me you still care about him!”

Logan kicks a rock, sending it skittering down the gravel drive. His voice is quieter when he says,

“He- he sends me letters sometimes. I don’t read them. I try not to touch them. But he-- he used to read to me. He taught me to read, and tie my shoes, and use the Speech--”

“But you’re so gentle with it,” Deceit says. “Back there, when you had Thomas say what happened-- damn, if anyone else had tried he’d have ended up stuttering and probably breaking down, but you made it so painless--”

“Have you asked Roman about my father’s Speech?”

Logan’s voice is dry. Deceit frowns, taken aback.

“Of course I haven’t.”

Logan laughs, then, but it’s not an amused laugh.

“He could make you think you just wanted to do something,” he says darkly, and Thomas shivers. It sounds like Logan is speaking from experience. “He could say _shut up_ and you just wouldn’t feel like talking. He could say _tell these kids to stand still so I can shoot guns at them_ and you’d figure they must have done something to deserve it. But- but sometimes he was mean with it, sometimes he--”

“You told Virgil to be quiet,” Thomas interrupts, and Logan chokes on air and goes silent for a moment. “When I first got here and I was freaking out.”

“I couldn’t let him--”

“You wanted to control the situation,” Thomas says, because he understands now. “You didn’t trust him to help you handle it. Like cooking breakfast.”

“Oh,” Logan says, voice very small.

“He’s not just moody,” Thomas says.

“I know that,” Logan says. His voice breaks. “I know that, I was trying to make everyone stop staring at him when I said that, he hates attention.”

“Oh,” says Deceit. “You’re... Thomas, you’re very insightful.”

“Thanks,” Thomas says.

“He’s dead,” Logan murmurs, and Thomas decides it’s time for a subject change.

“Why did you decide to learn weather magic, anyway,” he asks, “if you knew someone would end up dead from your choice? Isn’t that way too big of a risk?”

Logan heaves a long, drawn out sigh.

“Nothing else felt right. Even training my empathy made me feel too... trapped. Constricted. Now I’m spread out across the whole sky, and I’ve never been more at peace. It’s been said, about many of the worst weather witches, that once they started training, they were never the same again, that they became erratic, and overly emotional, but... it stabilised me. I feel... _better_ now. Or I did feel better, before Virgil-- I don’t feel good at all right now. But I think I can get through my training without accidentally killing anyone.”

Thomas still thinks it’s a strange way to arrange your priorities.

“You must’ve been awful before,” Deceit says, and Logan laughs again with no humor.

“You have no idea.”

When they get back to the clearing, Roman is sitting on the rocks that line the fire circle with his feet in the ashes, chin on his hand, elbow on his knee, looking dejected. Logan and Thomas hang back to let Deceit approach him, and Logan stares at the rubble of Cabin 2, expression unreadable. Thomas looks too, because there’s not much else to look at besides Roman and Deceit, and he wants to give them some privacy.

What’s strange is that their car is completely intact, paint not even a little melted, and the trees behind the cabin are untouched too. It sends shudders down Thomas’s spine as he stares at the ruins despite his best efforts to look away, and he nudges Logan and whispers,

“It looks like the fire here was extremely controlled.”

Logan catches the implication immediately, and heads towards Roman. Thomas steps forwards too, alarmed-- he didn’t mean to accuse anyone, he just thought it was weird.

“Take your time,” Deceit is saying patiently. Roman is shuddering, clinging to them with tears in his eyes.

“What’s--”

“Give him time,” Deceit says to Logan, tone short, and Logan glares, affronted.

“Talk!” he says to Roman, and Roman flinches and curls up tighter, sobbing audibly now. “Virgil is-- my boyfriend is dead! How did this happen? How could this have happened?”

“Stop harassing him,” Thomas says, grabbing Logan by the wrist and pulling him back away from Roman. “What is your _problem_?”

“Fucking talk,” Logan says, no longer shouting, voice trembling like a puppy during a storm as the clouds on the horizon slowly expand to cover about a third of the sky. “Give me something to go on, for fuck’s sake. You can’t just sit there dumb and smug while I flounder like a fish out of water with nothing to hear you lying in. Talk!”

“Logan!” Thomas exclaims, but Logan isn’t finished.

“You disappear and Virgil dies and now you won’t speak. That’s awfully convenient--”

“I was just exploring,” Roman says, quiet enough that Thomas almost doesn’t notice it. He’s looking down, at the coals in the fire pit. “Embarking on an adventure, and I got back and everyone was gone. I didn’t burn the cabin down, I wouldn’t--”

“I know,” Deceit says softly. “I know you’d never kill anyone, Roman, look at me.”

Roman looks, and Thomas sees tears in his eyes. Thomas looks over at Logan, expecting to see sympathy on his face, but his jaw is set, expression tense.

“You sound like your dad when you’re angry,” Roman says, turning towards Logan, eyes wide and anxious. Logan swallows, and there’s a scary sneer curling his lip now, something poisonous (possibly hatred) tinting his eyes. “And I’m not lying. I didn’t set that fire.”

“ _Then why is he dead_ ,” Logan snaps, voice layered pointlessly with the Speech, and Deceit turns and gestures harshly at him. They turn back to Roman, who is curled up in a ball, cowering, and touch his shoulder gently. Roman jerks away, scrambling out of the fire circle and backing himself up against the black walnut tree. Overhead, clouds curl threateningly as Logan tries and fails to speak.

“Please don’t fight,” Thomas says, as it starts to drizzle, wishing for his raincoat and then remembering he left it in Cabin 2.

“I warned you,” Deceit says quietly. “I told you what the consequence would be if you Spoke at him, and you Spoke to him anyway. I’ll fix you as soon as I can think straight enough to do it without hurting you. I’m very angry right now.”

Logan is unnervingly still, holding his breath, fingers not even twitching.

“Logan,” Thomas says desperately, as the wind picks up. “Think about the situation. What motive would Roman even have--”

“Oh, don’t bother with that,” Deceit interrupts, shifting into a ready stance, voice coloured lightly with sarcasm, heavily with anger. “You can’t stop a cloud from raining, and you can’t reason with a weather witch who’s angry. He’s only following the logic as he sees it.”

Logan twitches, and Deceit’s face twists into a taunting smile.

“Isn’t that right, Logan? I mean, come on. Everyone knows dragons are violent. Everyone knows we kill things with fire. And your boyfriend died in a fire. Therefore dragons must have killed him. Roman and I are the only dragons here, and I’ve been in your sight all day, so obviously, Roman killed Virgil.”

Something breaks in Logan’s expression when Deceit says Virgil’s name, and things begin to wind up, tension building and building like static in a dryer, waiting for the right moment.

“So you see, Thomas, it’s only fair if he kills me back,” Deceit says softly, words somehow more cutting than yelling could ever be. Thomas feels them even though they aren’t even directed at him as he wonders-- why would Logan choose Deceit, even if he was going to kill one of them? “Nevermind the high suicide rates for trauma victims like his boyfriend. Nevermind his almost perfect training record. Nevermind that he’s the last weather witch who’ll be allowed to train openly in the entire Midwest if he doesn’t keep it under control. Nevermind that there are causes bigger than his anger. After all, what’s bigger than the sky?”

The wind blows, clouds twisting in the sky above them, and Thomas shudders.

“I don’t like this,” he says to Logan. “Please stop.”

Logan shuts his eyes, but doesn’t respond. And then:

The smell of ozone, sharp and vindictive. A bright flash of light, brighter than when Thomas’s Science Bowl team took a group photo facing towards the sun in middle school. A sound like gunshots, rattling once, twice, three times. And a tingling, tingling, creeping up Thomas’s legs and making his knees buckle. What was that?

_Lightning._

Thomas opens his eyes and starts breathing again. Deceit is on the ground, and Roman is on fire. Everything is buzzing; the air Thomas breathes, the mud under his knees, and his own fingers.

Roman is on fire, lighting up the tree behind him, face in shadow. He glows hotter as Thomas tries to regain his bearings. Deceit isn’t moving. Why aren’t they standing up?

Roman is on fire, advancing towards Logan with his teeth bared, eyes shining with reflected flame. His scales flash in the light. Thomas smells burnt flesh and fish oil, pungent and stomach-churning. Deceit’s body is smoking (steaming?) and there’s a hissing sound as the rain hits it. The spines on their face have laid back down, and their eyes are open, unseeing. Thomas flinches when he makes eye contact. Their scales look completely yellow in this light.

Roman is on fire, blaze spreading out from where he stands with inexorable determination. Thomas has to back up; the fire pauses as he stumbles, letting him struggle to his feet, letting him get away. Logan is glaring at the flames with a look on his face like sunlight focused through a magnifying glass.

Roman is on fire, extending a hand towards Deceit and staring Logan down unflinchingly as his flames consume his lover’s body.

“You had better give us a respectful burial,” he says, voice low and rough like crackling flames, and he’s definitely crying. “You better leave our ashes by some cows.”

And the whole creek moves. It crashes over Roman and does what simple rain couldn’t do, dousing his flame and leaving him there shivering.

“What,” Roman says, turning to look at the creek, leaving his back open, undefended. “Dee--”

Logan takes a step towards him, and Thomas’s body moves without a conscious decision on his part, remembering the way Roman didn’t set him on fire only seconds ago, and suddenly he is standing between the two witches, hand shaped into a fingergun, pointed at Logan.

“Calm your shit,” Thomas says. “There’s no rush. We’ll wait.”

Roman sobs behind him, but Thomas doesn’t turn, uncertain what he’s doing with his hands but unwilling to ignore the instincts that made him do this in the first place.

Logan is looking at him with wide eyes. Slowly, he puts his hands up and whispers,

“Don’t shoot me.”

Thomas looks at his own hand and then glances around at Roman, who is peeking at the two of them. Suddenly, Roman flinches, hard, and backs away again. Steam begins to rise from his wet clothes.

“How do you have a gun,” he says, and Thomas furrows his brow.

“What are you talking about?”

“You--” he won’t look away from Thomas’s hand, and Thomas glances at it and then back at Roman, confused.

“I don’t have a gun,” Thomas says.

“It looks like you have a gun,” Roman insists, voice shaking violently. “What the fuck. Point that away from him.”

Thomas looks at his hand, which still looks like a hand to him, and, conscious of his position between two extremely powerful witches, he says,

“I’m going to move my hand very slowly now. Tell me what you see.”

Thomas opens his hand, and feels something release. Roman frowns.

“The gun is gone.”

The rain is petering out now, just a mild drizzle, and Thomas glances at Logan to see him with his eyes shut, taking deep breaths.

“There wasn’t a gun,” Thomas says. “I don’t know why you saw a gun.”

“There was too a gun! I saw it--”

“Roman,” he says more sharply, and Roman flinches. “I promise it was fake. It wasn’t real, and I don’t know how I did it--”

“I know what a gun looks like,” Roman says. He sobs. “Fuck, I don’t care about the gun, but you don’t have to lie to me. And Logan, you owe me. You owe me huge. You know I didn’t fucking kill Virgil, right? Mister empath? You know I’m not lying?”

“I’m sorry,” Logan whispers, since his voice is gone. “I’m so, so sorry. Anything you want, and it’s yours.”

Roman is silent for a very long moment. Thomas gets the impression he’s about to do something he knows he shouldn’t do, something unfair.

He straightens his shoulders. Moves Thomas out of the way, easy as pushing in a chair. Stares Logan down, hair falling in his eyes.

“You’re never going to have children,” he says. “Neither biological nor adopted. I don’t want anyone else like you and your dad to exist ever again. The Barry family has taken--”

“I’m not a Barry,” Logan says, whispering as loudly as he can. “Not anymore. I changed it--”

“Change it back,” Roman says. “Represent yourself more honestly, Mr. Barry.”

“That’s two things,” Logan says. “You only get to demand one thing from me, Roman, and it has to be reasonable. I--”

“Really? It has to be reasonable, huh? Well, I don’t think reason was involved even a little bit just now! Deceit didn’t even fucking touch you! Why not kill _me_ , huh? You should’ve killed me! Fucker!”

Roman shoves Logan hard, and Logan stumbles back, falling into the muddy grass.

“I-- they--” Logan’s voice comes back abruptly, and cracks, and Roman looks around wildly.

“Dee?” he says. “Dee, come on, I know that was you.”

There’s no response. Thomas looks on in concern.

“Deceit Classandra Moore, I swear to--”

_Calm down, dumbass_ , says Deceit’s voice, and Thomas can’t even be sure he hears it. Roman sinks to his knees, though, suppressing sobs. _I can probably stick around for a few more minutes. Hey, you know what would be cool?_

“What,” Roman asks.

_If I avenged myself._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, >:3
> 
> the plot.... _thicken_

**Author's Note:**

> let me know what you think! comments have always provided most of my motivation and i've already written almost this whole story but i'll probably post the next chapter sooner if i get comments
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/coralflower_ao3?s=09)  
> [writing tumblr](http://coralflower-ao3.tumblr.com)


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